The word is officially out on the swine flu and the danger it could potentially cause the human race. Our science bloggers Robert and Allison have done a nice job covering the issue so far here and here so I won’t cover those details here.

However, I came across this article on Marketwatch today that was kind of interesting. Seems that the swine flu scare has caused oil prices to drop some and has actually boosted the American dollar a bit. The price of oil fell about five percent this morning, settling in at $48.77 per barrel. As concerns of a pandemic spread, risky assets like stocks tend to go down. It turns out that oil traders take the stock market performance as a cue for overall economy, which is why oil prices tend to rise and fall with what’s happening on Wall St.

The cost of the U.S. dollar rose about .8 percent against the Euro, which doesn’t sound like much, but makes a big difference when you’re talking about billions of dollars. Since crude oil is bought and sold in American dollars, the rising value has also helped drive down oil prices.

It’ll be interesting to see what happens to the U.S. and world economies with this latest flu pandemic scare. The world was in a different place when the Avian flu was lurking on the horizon.

Educate yourself:
How Bird Flu Works
10 Worst Epidemics
How Tamiflu Works