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A hospital in North Carolina has reported four cases of drug-resistant H1N1 flu last week, underscoring the suspicion that the virus is now mutating. There have been more than 50 cases of the flu found to be resistant to medication like Tamiflu since this past April, with about 15 having occurred here in the US. The World Health Organization stated that the mutations “appear to occur sporadically and spontaneously,” and that “to date, no links between the small number of patients infected with the mutated virus have been found, and the mutation does not appear to spread.” In fact, the number of states here in the US that have been reporting influenza activity declined for two weeks in a row, suggesting that the virus incidence may have peaked. Anti H1N1 vaccines are still in sharp demand, despite widespread public suspicion over its safety and efficacy.

GUEST: John Barry, prize-winning and New York Times best-selling author of The Great Influenza: The Epic Story of the Deadliest Plague in History, and Distinguished Scholar at the Center for Bioenvironmental Research of Tulane and Xavier Universities