The Swine Flu Web Talk Show

The Obama administration has deployed all kinds of nifty Web tools to inform the public about the current outbreak of swine flu - which the Health and Human and Services Department now calls the H1N1 variant of influenza - including a Web cast this afternoon with top federal officials in a format most Americans find comfortable: a talk show.

The show featured HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and Homeland Security Department Secretary Janet Napolitano in a Washington studio. Dr. Richard Besser, acting head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, was in a studio at CDC headquarters in Atlanta.

The trio dispensed practical flu prevention information available on the DHS, HHS and CDC Web sites, but in a relaxed and comfortable manner. This included advice to cover your mouth and nose when you cough or sneeze and an admonition to anyone with flu-like systems NOT to take a commercial air flight.

Although Vice President Joe Biden said on Wednesday that he and his family would avoid travel on the subway, Besser said, in response to an e-mailed question, that he viewed subways as safe.

Besser also explained that CDC had dropped the moniker "swine flu" in favor of H1N1 because the current strain, which has infected a confirmed 109 people and caused one death in the United States, has swine, bird and human flu strains.

That's probably a relief to the National Pork Producers Council which that "H1N1 virus is transmitted through human contact and that pork is 100 percent safe to consume."