The last part of the article is quite sad.

Yeah, I was laughing about it sounding like an article from The Onion till I read the last part. *sigh*

I've watched the naming and rebranding of this particular flu outbreak with some grim amusement. Muslims and Jews being squicked because swine are unclean. The CDC took to calling it 'novel H1N1'.

It kind of reminds me of the GRID to AIDS transformation.

I hate to think what's happening in Egypt right now. Hopefully the pigs are being killed humanely. I suppose the authorities have been waiting for a politically acceptable excuse to regulate pig farming for a while, but I'd be surprised if they've got contingencies for dealing with all the organic waste that the pigs are currently dealing with.

GRID? You are kidding me. I can remember HTLV3 and references to Kaposi's Sarcoma, but "gay related immune disease"? "gay cancer"? I know that was a while ago, but that's pretty insensitive even by the standards of the day. Living in Scotland at the time, we saw it as a disease affecting gay men in San Fransisco and local junkies (heroin being far and away the intravenous drug of choice). Despite a lot of media panic and finger pointing, most people saw the disease for what it was. Perhaps the heroin epidemic helped people to be less judgmental.