News of Swine Flu continues to permeate American media outlets.

“Is it safe to take my children to Disneyland next week?” one parent asked an expert during a segment on this morning’s The Today Show. (The answer was, Yes, it’s okay to travel — Just not to Mexico.)

“Should I avoid eating pork products?” (No. You can’t contract the Flu from bacon.)

As Jessica Tsai pointed out in her April 29 post, the Swine Flu pandemic has led to a media frenzy — not only on the 24-hour news channels, but all over the Web. The Facebook map indicates that not only are people reading to educate themselves about the healthcare news, but they are talking about it with friends. The chart below indicates the jump in the number of blog posts referring to Swine Flu and also maps Twitter posts referencing Swine Flu.

It’s interesting to me the extent to which people react to sensational healthcare news. They scurry to buy surgical masks, but are these same consumers as concerned with other forms of disease management? Have they updated their electronic medical records and engaged with personalized medicine? My guess — and yes, it’s only a guess — is no.

I’m in the process of researching an upcoming CRM in Healthcare feature. Part of what I am looking to uncover is the real-time technologies that allow for awareness to be brought forth in an instant such as what has happened with Swine Flu. However, another major topic in which I am researching is that of the attitude of the average healthcare consumer. From what I gathered at a Consumer Health World conference last winter, the healthcare consumer is for the most part categorized as uninformed, lazy, and unsatisfied with the industry. I wrote about the lack of adoption of Health 2.0 initiatives back in December. Yet, I’m fully aware that the consumers are not fully to blame for slowing of the next generation of healthcare. Many information gaps exist. As one source told me, there’s a flawed delivery system which is to blame for many of the problems facing both providers and patients.

So, with the buzz generating around consumers protecting themselves from Swine Flu, it leaves me wondering whether with the social Web we are entering a new era of health education and conversation, or whether this is a reaction to a sensational news story. Amidst the news and education circumnavigating the Web, there is a great deal of misinformation, too. Opinion writer Evgeny Morozov highlighted some of this in this NPR.org post.

Morozov presented the following misinformed tweets about Swine Flu:

Short Ribs! How long before the Swine Flu hysteria crashes the pork market? 2 hours? 3?

be careful of the swine flu!!!! (may lead to global epidemic) Outbreak in Mexico. 62 deaths so far!! Don’t eat pork from Mexico!!

Swine flu? Wow. All that pork infecting people….beef and chicken have always been meats of choice

The bottom line here is that it’s great to see so much awareness coming forth about a potential health hazard. However, people will be people — sometimes fickle, lazy, misinformed, and confused. Conversation is happening and that, at least, is a step in the right direction.