U.S. Officials Want New Name for Swine Flu

As peculiar as this may sound, The US Department of Homeland Security has a very valid point when it argues that the current influenza outbreak should not be labeled “Swine Flu.” As of Tuesday, more than 10 countries have placed restrictions on imported pork products from the United States, incorrectly thinking that this flu can be transmitted through eating pork. Let’s be very clear, you DO NOT get the Swine Flu from eating bacon or ham! In fact, authorities have not identified a single pig infected with the disease in the United States.

The correct scientific classification of this flu’s strain is called the H1N1 virus. This worldwide misunderstanding of the flu’s name has dramatically affected the $5 billion a year U.S. pork export business. In the last few days alone, the market values of pork, soy bean and corn products have dropped.

Even as I write this, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) still has a web page devoted to “Swine Influenza”. I think Homeland Security needs to be pushing this concern with the CDC first, as the CDC is the agency which most U.S. citizens are counting on to give them sound advice on keeping their families and co-workers safe.

You can learn more about this topic in this article from Fox News.

This entry was posted on Thursday, April 30th, 2009 at 7:45 am and is filed under Safety Articles. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.