Leading PR professionals have attacked the government over its handling of the swine flu pandemic, accusing its comms teams of unwittingly spreading panic rather than averting it.
Government and non-government organisations alike are bombarding the nation with a continuous stream of warnings and guidance in a bid to contain the spread of the infection and assuage any fears that the public might have.
But it is this progressive flow of conflicting messages that many PROs are concerned about.
Rather than a pandemic of swine flu, the country is currently in the grip of a pandemic of panic, fuelled by a PR whirlwind of well-intentioned but disproportionately excessive campaign of advice and information.
NHS surgeries across the country are being inundated by calls from anxious patients fearful they've caught a virus more deadly than the bubonic plague.
Yet the reality is that fewer than 20 people in the UK have died from the virus so far, many of whom were already suffering from underlying health problems.
So it is important that those key communicators involved remind themselves that the British media have a strong propensity towards turning the slightest scare into a full-scale national crisis. Therefore they need to call more upon their PR sensibilities, turn down the volume control and steer clear of a feeding frenzy.
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