No reason to panic, but

SWINE OUTBREAK
THREATENS USA

By V.B. Batz, M.D., Medical Correspondent with
David Bloviator in Washington and Ann Colt .45 in Undisclosed Location, Wyo. 

Americans are watching and worrying about a sudden outbreak of swine that threatens the health and welfare of millions at home and around the world.

Swine outbreaks have been reported at epidemic levels in the Washington, D.C. area

Following the November elections, the prevailing wisdom was that swine were under control for the next four to eight years, having been herded away from their former positions in Washington and safely quarantined in distant wastelands such as Wyoming and Alaska. But the respite has proven short-lived, as the country contends with fresh outbreaks of swine, both in Washington and in other "hot spots." 

Public health officials caution that while the current outbreak of swine is not as severe as the contagions that ravaged the country in 1981 and 2001, it would be imprudent to ignore the risk. "We thought we had the problem of swine fixed in the mid-60's, yet it came back worse than ever, afflicting millions in the first decade of the new millennium," recalled Sen. Ted Kennedy.

Kennedy recalled that the earlier swine pandemic had deprived millions of American children of health care and led to over 600,000 deaths in Iraq, including close to 5,000 Americans. He said that the pandemic had also resulted in crippling injuries to tens of thousands of young Americans, often requiring traumatic amputations and leading to potentially lifelong disability.

Among the most dangerous modalities of swine transmission is drug-addled insult comic Rush Limbaugh, shown here waiting for lunch

Earlier this year, health experts had concluded that swine were contained in isolated areas, including the studio of porcine insult comic Rush Limbaugh, the Alaska Governor's Trailer, and the underground torture chamber of former Vice President Dick "Dark Side" Cheney. However, since Inaugural Day, there have been alarming reports of swine busting out all over the country. 

These reports reached a crescendo on April 15, when teabag-brandishing swine were reported in over 40 cities and towns across America. Epidemiologists have identified an obscure cable network known as "Schlox News" as the principal vector of swine transmission on that date.

Obama Administration officials are urging the public to remain vigilant and to report outbreaks of swine as soon as they are noticed. Among the telltale signs of the plague of swine are:

• paranoid behavior, such as stockpiling ammunition in the belief that the Government is about to seize it all, or blaming undocumented aliens for the transmission of a disease that broke out after they were already in the United States;
• loss of balance, such as suggesting that taxing the income of high earners at 39.6% is equivalent to either "socialism" or "fascism," or demanding the right to pay millions of dollars in bonuses to traders who have jobs only because the U.S. Government is guaranteeing their firm's debt;
• fevered delusions and hallucinations, such as imagining that the President of the United States is not a U.S. citizen or that his civil greeting of a foreign leader demonstrates the existence of a conspiracy to defraud the Government of billions of dollars; and
• heavy breathing (in the case of Bill O'Reilly)

U.S. officials stress that while there is no vaccine available today to protect the public against an epidemic of swine, there are commonsense precautions that all Americans can take to limit the virulence of any outbreak, including

• washing one's hands of all swinish contagion (recommended by Sen. Arlen Specter (Newly D – Pa.));
• quarantining swine in places where they can do no harm, such as the offices of the House and Senate Minority Leaders;
• sanitizing vulnerable areas by flooding dark corners, including those in Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib, with sunlight: and
• suing the afflicted porker for millions of dollars in damages (in the case of Bill O'Reilly)

With public anxiety rising, Americans are turning once again to President Barack Obama for reassurance. In a video posted on the White House web site, the President urged the American people to unite to wipe out pandemic swine. He closed his remarks on an optimistic note, predicting that the current outbreak of swine should be eradicated "no later than November 2010."