Prior to this past, decade of insanity, governments and the media seemed to be so much more responsible conservative - when faced with potential pandemics and epidemics - than they are now. The object was always to avoid alarming people wherever feasible.  Nowadays, governments and the mainstream media seem to go out of their way to whip up public fear to fever pitch and beyond.

Why do they do this?  Who are the winners of this hype-fest?

Around the globe:

governments stocked up with anti-virals and flu vaccines to the tune of billions of pounds, courtesy of taxpayers;

pharmacies and hospitals stocked up with face masks (which provide limited protection, so are practically useless);

pharma and biotech corporations' share prices rocketed – such as GlaxoSmithKline, Gilead Sciences, Roche, Novavac, Biocryst, 3M (producers of Tamiflu, Relenza and face masks, etc.);

media empires sold more newspapers and advertising and boosted their ratings;

governments collected sales tax on all these items and will doubtless collect extra taxes on ensuing profits.

The losers were the Mexicans, pork product manufacturers and taxpayers around the world.  The peso fell, the Mexican iShares market was down by 8%, its airports and transport systems were hammered, food manufacturers’ share prices were down by 10% and the Mexican economy has lost millions for each day of this ‘epidemic of fear’.  Some forecasters put the total cost of this scare in the trillions of dollars, taking all its inevitable ripple effects into account.

According to Dr. Brian Currie, Vice President and Medical Director at Montefiore Medical Center (New York), seasonal flu kills around 36,000 people per year in America alone.  Worldwide, regular flu kills between one 2,500,000 and 5,000,000 people each year. The rate of infection of swine flu is nowhere near that of regular flu; it has killed a fraction of that number and not all were not brimming with health before they contracted it.

The only possible credible cause for concern is that the swine flu strain found in America was far weaker than that found in Mexico.  According to early reports, the Mexican casualties might have suffered greater impact due to genetic qualities specific to Mexicans, since the victims were relatively young and healthy.

If the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) were concerned about a more virulent strain migrating into America, why did it expressly choose not to close the borders, stating that it was “already too late”? Why did it then suggest that people might have to be quarantined to stop the virus spreading further?  These two stances are contradictory.  Was it too late to stop the contagion, or wasn’t it?

After a week of media and government frenzy, we now discover that the contagion rate is nothing like the potential rate that had been mooted by the DHS.

So we come full circle.  Here we are, mired in a worldwide depression which could rival that of the 1930s, commodity sales, stocks, pension funds and tax receipts all horribly depressed.  Miraculously, along comes this almighty scare which boosts the sorry coffers of corporations and governments alike.

Call me cynical, but when we are faced with a serious pandemic in the future, who will take heed of those who cry “wolf!”?