Swine Flu: Sky Not Falling, Yet

SUSAN DONALDSON JAMES
ABC
Tuesday, April 28, 2009

When an acorn falls on Chicken Little's head, he works his friends Henny Penny, Cockey Lockey and Goosey Loosey into a frenzy -- that is until they get eaten by Foxy Loxy.

The nut, it turned out, was far less menacing than the opportunistic fox.

Nursery rhymes aside, public hysteria is natural reaction to news that is surprising, frightening and unpredictable -- like swine flu.

As the news coverage ratchets up, so does a sense of fear about how big and how dangerous this new swine flu virus will be.

While the Centers for Disease Control , have declared the new resistant strain a "public health emergency," comparing it to the 1918 flu pandemic that killed 50 million worldwide, some are warning that although panic is natural, it's not necessarily healthy.

Full article here