You are looking at the HTML representation of the XML format.
HTML is good for debugging, but is unsuitable for application use.
Specify the format parameter to change the output format.
To see the non HTML representation of the XML format, set format=xml.
See the complete documentation, or API help for more information.
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<api>
  <query>
    <search>
      <p ns="0" title="Unraveling a pandemic: from avian to swine influenza" snippet="But exactly what is the influenza virus? What is the &lt;span class=&#039;searchmatch&#039;&gt;meaning&lt;/span&gt; of those H1 vs. H5? How does it cause disease? What do epidemics look like &#10;" size="1110" wordcount="195" timestamp="2009-07-27T17:40:32Z" />
    </search>
  </query>
</api>