The author of Bad Science, Ben Goldacre, commented yesterday that his article on Swine Flu was "possibly the most boring thing I've ever written for the Guardian," and indeed there's a certain yawn-inducing tedium that I can already feel infecting me as I write this. It's not so much the virus that's boring - flu is a fascinating subject, honestly - but the farcical, playground level of the public debate.

On the one hand are morons running around in a blind panic searching for decorative face masks and putting together their Zombie Survival Kits; on the other hand are morons who believe flu is perfectly harmless really; and on a surprise third-hand floating in it's own distinct reality unattached to the other two are the conspiracy theorists, who think it's all been genetically engineered to infect our brains with socialism or something.

This poor quality of debate even extends to public health issues, such as the Indonesian Health Minister, whose views are mentioned in a report by the Singaporean organ "Straits Times" that would be funny if she wasn't responsible for the health of hundreds of millions of people:

The controversial minister did not elaborate but in the past she has said Western governments could be making and spreading viruses in the developing world to boost pharmaceutical companies' profits.

'I'm not sure whether the virus was genetically engineered but it's a possibility,' she told reporters at a press conference called to reassure the public over the government's response to the swine flu threat.

Moving swiftly on, what's remarkable about the media coverage is the way that any sensible narrative has given way to two polarised views, neither of which bears much relation to reality. Indeed, this conflict seems to feed off of itself, as if the two sides are like some sort of estranged couple, racing to put as much distances between themselves as possible. Richard Littlejohn leads the charge on one side, bemoaning...

"...health-scare ‘experts’ are having a field day with their Doomsday predictions."

...but apparently failing to realize that the Doomsday predictions are mostly an invention of his own colleagues in the media rather than something taken from expert advice. In the same column he went on to rant that:

"One virologist, on the basis of precisely nothing, said swine flu could become crossed with bird flu and mutate into an ‘ Armageddon’ strain."

The clue is in your own words Richard - it was on the basis of virology and genetics, which tell us that this sort of thing does indeed happen on a fairly regular basis. But then as I've noted before, watching Littlejohn attempting to understand science is like watching an
Apprentice candidate trying to grasp the concept of humility.

Swine flu is a major risk, as were - and indeed still are - SARS and avian flu. The chances of a pandemic occuring in any one year is low, but when new outbreaks like this occur it is important to realise that they are capable of doing a lot of damage. Conventional flu kills around 100 people a day in the U.S. alone, over 30,000 in a year. A super-strain could very easily kill a million or more world-wide in a year. Of course conventional flu is also hugely under-rated, largely because many people pretend to have it when it fact they have nothing more than a cold. Viruses like avian flu are constantly mutating and evolving, flirting with the idea of becoming a pandemic. One day one of them will, and we need to be prepared for that eventuality, because it will happen.

But of course these people aren't really reacting to expert advice so much as to the more hysterical voices in the echo-chamber of the media. Earlier this evening I popped out to my local Indian for a curry, and while waiting had a flick through a copy of The Sun that was on the counter. Nestled in amongst all the boobs was a sea of chilling warnings of a "killer virus" and the "threat to humanity." In this respect, the papers remind me a bit of the Warden in
Dad's Army - yes it is important that we put the lights out, but could you please just not be quite so mental about it?

As always, some bloke from the olden days has said what I want to say far more eloquently than I can, so let's copy-paste good old
George Bernard Shaw:

"Newspapers are unable, seemingly, to discriminate between a bicycle accident and the collapse of civilisation."

And that's where reality lies - in the middle. The world isn't a black and white place, things aren't good or bad, a situation isn't dangerous or safe, there are risks, and a useful media - a media helpful to democracy - would present a clear and sober assessment of those risks. But clear and sober just isn't on the agenda.