It is possible the media holds too much influence over the behaviour of North American society. How much of the recent economic downturn we have experienced is due to falling consumer confidence? How much of our consumer confidence drop is due to what we read, see and hear in the media? Like sheep being led down a path we blindly eat it up and rely on alert levels posted by news and government to determined how panicked we need to act.

Just to help keep some perspective on the current media hype over swine flue in which two people have died in the past month: In the U.S., an estimated 25–50 million cases of the common flu are currently reported each year — leading to 150,000 hospitalizations and 30,000–40,000 deaths yearly. If these figures were to be estimated incorporating the rest of the world, there would be an average of approximately 1 billion cases of flu, around 3–5 million cases of severe illness, and 300,000–500,000 deaths annually. Now put away your masks and hand sanitizers and get back to work.