>>>>>As of this morning - The swine flu is officially a pandemic. Still, it doesn't seem like much, but it is capable of expansion into the population almost exponentially. Never forget that there are too many humans on the planet and mother nature shall not tollerate over population. The swine flu may come to nothing, but eventually there will be something in our future that will cull a lot of people from the herd.
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>>>>I am surprised that it wasn't declared as such previously. Here in the U.S., if you call the doctor because you have the flu, you are told to not come in unless you have trouble breathing, get dehydrated, have a high fever for greater than 72 hours, or experience anything you consider to be a medical emergency. That is done to prevent spreading of the flu virus, but it also means that we do not have accurate counts here on how many swine flu cases there really are.
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>>>I read this morning that Australia has announced another 1000 cases. There is a good story about it on MSNBC.com. BBC says that WHO announced the global pandemic criteria was met a few weeks ago, but they held off on declaring the situation. It should be noted that WHOs declaration is made to invoke procedures in countries to step up vaccine production and other actions in which Mr. Mason has chosen not to participate.
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>>I would say that Nicholas has some point in this discussion, limited one. I mean that not every disease should mandate vaccination. I don't think that flu-like sickness is dangerous enough to justify pre-conditional intervention. If disease is quite curable and medications available then why provoke it? Human immune system is not a bottomless pit, it can be strained by unnecessary impacts.
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>I agree Edward. I suspect that as we age, our immune system's abilty to regenerate original tissue wanes and ultimately a malignancy may be formed. Immune systems cetainly are overtaxed.

To be fair, few actually die from the flu, but rather from flu complications (pneumonia).

http://www.life-enthusiast.com/news/s_flu.htm

http://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/qa/disease.htm
About 36,000 Americans die on average per year from the complications of flu.

However, that still proves my point. Your slight inconvenience due to the flu might result in the death of someone else who caught the flu bug from you and it evolved into pneumonia.