When the news of the swine flu pandemic broke in late April I got a sense of déjà vu … remembering the warnings about ‘SARS’ and bird flu that had hit the air waves a few years ago. 
 
My experience is that these healthcare ‘crises’ fit a pattern, at least in the way the media covers them: a large number of cases turn up somewhere outside the United States, say Mexico or the Philippines. Then we go through a few days of hourly broadcast updates and front-page articles. These focus on hand washing and other measures people ...