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The H1N1 beat is relentless. CBS' Jim Axelrod told us about the "slow and antiquated" method for making vaccine, a 50-year-old production process using hen's eggs. The method has been modernized but will not be approved until "next year at the earliest"…CBS' Jeff Glor (no link) darkly warned us of worst case scenario estimates of a pandemic that will paralyze workplaces, costing the Gross Domestic Product $600bn, or 4% of output…NBC's Robert Bazell offered the bright side, citing statistics that the swine strain virus has spread to 95% of all college campuses yet has killed not a single student and has led to hospitalization of fewer than 0.1% of those infected…NBC's Mara Schiavocampo verified the lack of campus concern with her vox pop of students. "For the most part it is business as usual inside the classroom and out," she found. "Lots of people living, studying and partying together."
Dr Richard Besser was a public health bureaucrat at the Centers for Disease Control before he became a journalist, now the senior medical editor at ABC News. Unfortunately Besser does not seem to have received the memo. His new job is to cover the performance of the public health sector not to speak for it. Discussing popular worries about 'flu vaccine safety, this is what Besser told his anchor Charles Gibson: "It raises questions about trust in science, trust in government and what we do to explain clearly what has been done. I do not think we have done all we can to really assure the public about the safety of this vaccine."
Who is this we, Besser? The doctor is acting just like a retired general hired by a news organization to be a military consultant, unable to disentangle his loyalty to the Pentagon with his journalistic duty to his viewers. ABC News is not an arm of the public health bureaucracy and Besser, now he is a journalist, should stop confusing the two.
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