To be fair, doctors these days have a hard time from patients who may be better informed, mostly from the internet, than in the past. The doctor-patient relationship has changed. Of course there are good and bad doctors - Harold Shipman looked a very kindly GP. I believe Dom is rich, and I really like him!
Sir Liam Donaldson (England's Chief Medical Officer) has to get it right every time he speaks in public by whatever means. People in his position need charisma and communication skills ... too little and they're boring, too much and we don't trust them.
It's absolutely true that viruses like that causing swine flu CAN mutate ...it's survival of the fittest for them...and kill many thousands of people (maybe pets as well). If, conversely, they mutate to a milder variant they survive by not killing many people. Like the weather, very difficult to predict, and we can still neither rule out a major pandemic nor another prolonged freeze.
