Swine flu has been making headline over here for quite some time. The message now is that it could become explosive with the opening of the new school year. Schools are usually a kind of microbial fog, so there is a much highter risk of infection in that kind of environement. Some summer camps had actually distributing surgical masks to childrens, once swine flu had manifested itself. I tend not to be overly concerning about this for myself, personally, since I had various Asian flu diseases back in the 50s and 60s, what should provide some degree of resistance. Anyway, I get a regular flu shot every autumn, and I had a pneumonia shot a few years ago which is good for a solid decade. It takes something like the swine flu to remember us of the many epidemics and pandemics to which people were subjected in pre-antibiotic times -- most notably, in the 20th century, the flu epidemic at the end of WWI, polyo, and, as mentioned, the Hong Kong and others Asian flu outbreaks of 40 and 50 years ago.