Sep 23rd, 2009
Silly me, thinking the swine flu mythography had reached a dead end back in May. It had proved a fruitful topic then, what with blaming the Mexicans, isolating Afghan pigs, etc. But then I got a detailed warning email from the writing residency I will be attending in October on how to prepare to not [...]
May 11th, 2009
So, we seem to be done with swine flu. The epidem-mythology has slowed down. Mexico City has let out its collective breath. The media has moved on to covering their own coverage of the almost-pandemic. But before we close the book on H1N1, the Mythographer wants to call your attention to this one tiny postscript. [...]
May 5th, 2009
Though the swine flu itself is not spreading as fast as anyone feared, the epidem-mythology hasn’t slowed. The misinformation has spread from pork manufacturers to subway riders to the entire nation of Mexico. It’s not just the Israeli government who would prefer to associate the H1N1 flu strain with the Mexicans than with swine. China [...]
Apr 30th, 2009
Repeat after me: you cannot get swine flu from eating pork. Pork manufacturers, for whom the myth has a certain reality, have joined the Israelis in campaigning to rename the latest flu strain. They want to stick with its actual name: H1N1. But how catchy is that? You can also NOT get swine flu [...]
Apr 27th, 2009
The only thing that spreads faster than new viruses are tall tales about those viruses: lack of knowledge and abundance of fear make for perfect myth-breeding conditions. (Exhibit A: AIDS.) This is especially true with animal-origin diseases, which echo ancient prohibitions against intimate animal-human contact. (The cause of 1976 cases of human swine flu [...]