Dear The National Fearmongers, ahem, The Media

You have made someone I care about very worried about swine flu.

Getting swine flu is like getting the regular flu.

Under 2000 people have caught the 2009 swine flu and under 100 have died. We're still talking a death rate comparable to being struck by lightning. (756 deaths / 13 years = 58 deaths per year.)

In the best case scenario, you're actually very concerned about this, which just means you're all gullible or you don't understand statistics or there are other psychological things going on inside your heads. In the likely scenario, it's a slow news week and you need to sell papers. In the conspiracy-theory scenario, you're all in cahoots trying to keep us afraid so that we channel all our energy into fighting Eastasia or something else sinister.

Whatever. Just shut the hell up.