Swine Flu

Around 36,000 people die each year in the USA from flu-related causes, averaging about 3000 a month.

Mexico has a population of 109m, roughly a third of that of the States, so you might expect normal flu mortality rates there in the region of 1000 pcm. (Though of course a greater proportion of the gringo population has easier access to basic medicine.)

So the 200 or so fatalities from swine flu since March look a bit insignificant...especially when you consider that most of these deaths resulted from pneumonia, a bacterial complication following the original viral infection (and that roughly five times that number of Mexicans will have died as a result of so-called ordinary flu in the same period.)

Many of these deaths could also have been avoided if the patients had presented earlier at their local clinic.

Conclusion - it's all bollocks.

[Though it's still kind of handy that most of our northern frontier is covered in dense jungle!]