Maggie's Farm

The Spanish flu epidemic of the 1918-ish was devastating. A world spent by war was ravaged by a disease that killed many more people than recent flu epidemics have done. Perhaps journalists keep looking for it to happen again. I remember that the public seemed as concerned about swine flu in 1976 -- and as eager for vaccination -- as they are in 2009. The epidemic fizzled, perhaps partly because of the vaccinations, and President Ford wound up somehow being blamed for the cases of Guillam-Barre that seemed linked to the flu shot. That link was never well established.
H1N1 may have legs because it came up initially in a quiet news cycle, like shark attacks on the Gulf Coast some years ago. Nothing unusual about the shark incidents but they caught a slow news cycle and grew legs.