There has been so much published about H1N1 swine flu in recent months that despite my keen interest in the topic (being an infectious diseases clinician involved with determining policy and strategic pandemic flu planning in my own hospital as well as looking after clinical cases), I can barely keep up with the medical aspects of the disease, never mind the rest of the information. But, as is ever the case, much of the other material that is in the public’s eye seems to be based on uninformed opinion and comment, rather than scientific facts.

Guest post by British doctor DeeTee. See more by DeeTee here.

As the H1N1 swine flu pandemic gathers pace, with 29 deaths to date, the attitude of the public seems to vary from rank indifference to blind panic. This view is reflected within my own hospital, where news of a possible flu admission is greeted by some staff saying "so what?" while others demand the equivalent of a biological "hazmat" suit before they get within a mile of a case.

I want to start with a graph, or rather a pair of graphs, taken from Google Trends. These aren't particularly accurate and should be taken with a pinch of salt, and the same pattern is not reflected in the United States, but they illustrate a worrying point. The graph at the bottom shows media mentions of swine flu parties in the United Kingdom over time, while the top graph shows search volume from British users.

The author of Bad Science, Ben Goldacre, commented yesterday that his article on Swine Flu was "possibly the most boring thing I've ever written for the Guardian," and indeed there's a certain yawn-inducing tedium that I can already feel infecting me as I write this. It's not so much the virus that's boring - flu is a fascinating subject, honestly - but the farcical, playground level of the public debate.