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Days of careful public health message control about a rational response to a looming influenza pandemic were vandalized by Joe Biden's loose lips. "He certainly should have known better," was how NBC's Robert Bazell put it, when the Vice President advised us to boycott mass transit. "Unfortunately the Vice President sounded like he knew what he was talking about when he really did not," ABC's in-house physician Timothy Johnson fact-checked. CBS' Nancy Cordes quoted White House press secretary Robert Gibbs: "I think the Vice President misrepresented what the Vice President wanted to say." NBC's Bazell used this Gibbs soundbite: "I understand what he said. I am telling you what he meant to say."
CBS' Cordes walked us through the science to justify labeling the H1N1 virus as a potential pandemic. "It has all three hallmarks," she pointed out, "a unique virus never seen before, easily transmitted from person to person, with a demonstrated ability to kill." Later on CBS, the newest addition to the network's in-house team of physicians showed that she is still a rookie when it comes to nailing her talking points. Dr Jennifer Ashton (at the tail of the Jon LaPook videostream) at first explained a theory to anchor Katie Couric why healthy young adults might be especially vulnerable: "They have a more robust and strong immune system so when they get exposed to the virus the immune system really overwhelms them." And then she explained who should be taking extra precautions against the virus: "People who have weakened immune systems, who have cancer, are HIV-positive, who are on steroids."
Dr Ashton's public health message control seems as disciplined as the Vice President's.
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