Media must educate, not panic, populace.

• Position: Public Health - Brief article

In addition to alerting the public about the latest cases of swine flu, the press should be educating the populace about how pandemics are fueled largely by poverty and can be combated, asserts Priscilla Wald, author of Contagious, which examines how the mainstream media tells the story of communicable disease outbreaks.

"Quarantine and vaccine are very important means of responding to a pandemic, but nothing will go farther to contain the spread of disease than a healthy population with access to health care," Wald maintains. "The saturation of a 24/7 news media creates the effect of an impending apocalypse. It reinforces a sense of helplessness and dependence on medical experts. The threat of a pandemic should not inspire paralysis. It should be a call to action. It should be a reminder that access to health care should not be a luxury, but a basic human right and a priority--at...