In this column for Kaiser Health News, Shannon Brownlee and Jeanne Lenzer write about the swine flu. “If any public health message has alarmed Americans in recent weeks, it is the repeated claim in the media that healthy young people are dying of 2009 H1N1, or swine flu. … The response has been predictable: frantic parents clogging waiting rooms in pediatricians’ offices, lining up for hours to get their kids vaccinated, and rushing to fill prescriptions for anti-viral drugs before the local pharmacy runs out” (11/17).