When compared to other viruses the 2009 Swine Flu really isn’t that bad. At least not yet. So one has to wonder… are things being exaggerated in the media to make money? I think the media is driven much by what people find interesting and people find the effects of H1N1 interesting. For the media it sells newspapers, air time, pageviews, etc. But that is the “job” the news these days, hype.

You may have noticed that recent commercials for products like Lysol, antibacterial soups, hand sanitizer and the like have all included something about protecting from the swine flu. Sure, they’d be dumb not to. People want to hear “Kills all traces of the H1N1 virus”. So tell them what they want to hear and you’ll sell your product.

Lets take a quick look at Reckitt Benckiser Group, the company that distributes Lysol, as an example of a company that could be benefiting from the H1N1 virus being as “important” as it is. They’re stock is up an incredible 23% this year to date. Not bad. By the way, I’m not saying that this growth is only related to the swine flu, I’m just making observations b’okay?

Think about this; are you washing your hands more often? I know I am. So just in that simple process we’re using more water, more soap, more paper towels/electricity. Have you ever seen more hand sanitizer being bought in your life? It is everywhere! There are too many companies to track to quantify the amount of money spent on the prevention of spreading this virus but it has to be in the billions.

I don’t know how much money has been made on the H1N1 virus but I’d bet it is a ton. (And one could easily argue that by me having ads on this very post that I’ll be making money on the virus too.)

Google, and more specifically Google.org, has setup an equally neat and useful system for tracking search trends regarding influenza. Apparently search trends are enough of an indicator to track actual flu activity. In other words, Google’s Flu Trends tool can now tell you how active these influenza viruses are in your area “up to two weeks faster than traditional systems”.

That seems an incredibly tall order but I believe them.

This tool sort of reminds me of two other systems that, while they too are incredibly ambitious, have made a large impact on the general human population. The National Weather Service’s storm warning systems and The Amber Alert. Both of these government-backed systems are very different but both have had incredible successes to help save lives and return missing or abducted children to their parents.

If Google is able to raise flu awareness in the US population by even a small percentile, it’d be a huge win for this tool. I wonder what other “search trend tools” could be built to help protect and serve the community.  And, even more importantly, how they can effect those that live inside and outside of the United States.

Source: Google Flu Trends.

Thanks Peter.
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