Video - Why Were Early Warnings of Swine Flu Ignored?

When I saw this video at Cubic Politics, I felt like I had stepped into an episode of Lost. Halfway through, I expected to receive instructions on which Dharma Initiative station I should go to for my Swine Flu Shot. Wait, there's a Swine Flu Shot?

The truth is, I spent 1976 paying attention to bicentennial treats like the Funky Phantom and Mark Fidrych, so I pretty much missed the swine flu outbreak that year. In fact, aside from the fact that the President's guide through a Mexican museum didn't die from it, I know very little about the swine flu.

Well, let's see what we can learn from these 70's-era swine flu PSAs:(h/t Cube)

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Well, I learned that I am scared, and that the guy in the second video is waaay too close to his mother-in-law. What the heck, it was the 70s. That second one reminded me of that awesome "VD Gets Around" commercial.

I also can't stop thinking about Samuel L. Jackson's Pulp Fiction rant about how he doesn't eat pork because he doesn't "dig on swine." Yeah, but bacon tastes good. Here's a fun fact: the number one search term on my own blog is bacon, and one of my most popular posts is a recipe for bacon-wrapped bananas.

Wait, are pop culture digressions a symptom of swine flu?

The bad news is that the swine flu shot from the seventies doesn't work on today's swine flu, in much the same way that creepy mustaches and sideburns don't work on the ladies anymore. The new and improved swine flu is a mutant mashup of human, porcine, and birdacious flu that, as far as I can tell, has nothing to do with the new X-Men movie.

Scientists are hard at work on a vaccine, though, so keep your insurance card handy so you can call them to see if they'll cover it.

It is also important to note that you can't get swine flu from eating properly cooked pork. If you're not cooking your pork properly, swine flu might be the least of your worries, anyway. Besides, as I said in paragraph 5, bacon tastes good! Don't hurt the bacon industry with your ignorance, please?

The New York Times is fighting the smearing of swine with an article about the naming of the flu. Really, even if you're going to single out pigs from the viral gumbo, do you have to say swine? They note that Janet Napolitano went out of her way to refer to the virus by its scientific name, H1N1 virus. Not as bad as "Pork-caused disaster," but still not very catchy. Maybe if they pronounced it phonetically, like "Hwon-Nwon."

Officials in Thailand are calling it the "Mexican flu," which would probably catch on all too easily here with some of our population. No thanks.

The Times also reports that the World Organization for Animal Health suggests calling it the "North American Flu." Unfortunately, this is all a moot point. The bell has been rung, and we're stuck with "swine flu."

Tommy on: Daily Dose:

• Rushing to Conclusions
• Robert Gibbs' Magical Powers and Other Observations
• Seniors Handcuff Selves to White House - No, Really
• The Republicans' First 100 Days


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