Pork producers slowly recover from initial ‘swine flu' label

The initial panic generated when the H1N1 flu emerged in the United States earlier this year hurt the region’s pork producers because of the erroneous label of “swine flu.”

“People immediately reacted by stopping their consumption of pork, which was a mistake because you absolutely cannot get the virus from eating pork or pork products,” said Eve Honeycutt of the N.C. Cooperative Extension Service in Lenoir County.

Pork producers in Eastern North Carolina were already coping with about two years of high feed prices this past spring when H1N1 emerged.

“Back when CNN and the media picked it up and started calling it ‘swine flu,’ it had a devastating effect,” said Jimmy Pollock, production manager for J.C. Howard Farms of Deep Run.

Pollock said countries such as China, Russia and Mexico that are major buyers of U.S. pork ceased purchasing and did not lift their import bans until last month.

Many American consumers stopped eating pork, fearing they could contract a virus that killed nearly 3,900 people in the U.S. as of mid-October, according to U.S. Centers for Disease Control estimates.

U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack and other government officials pleaded with the media to use the term “H1N1” — although health officials also repeatedly referred to it as “swine influenza” during the early days.

“It is simply not fair or correct to associate the 2009 pandemic H1N1 influenza with hogs, an animal that does not play a role in the ongoing transmission of the pandemic strain,” Vilsack stated.

H1N1 is derived from human, pig and bird influenza viruses.

“That particular genetic combination of swine influenza virus segments has not been recognized before in the U.S. or elsewhere,” Dr. Anne Schuchat, director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, told reporters in April.

The Associated Press uses “swine flu” and “H1N1,” based on interviews with scientists who said swine flu is the proper term, since six of its eight genetic segments are “purely swine,” according to a September story by Science Writer Seth Borenstein.

“The Associated Press continues to use ‘swine flu,’ believing it to be scientifically correct,” AP spokesman Jack Stokes said. “ ‘H1N1,’ as in ‘H1N1 virus,’ is also used in many of our stories.”

The AP’s experts agreed that people cannot contract H1N1 from eating pork, though, since the virus is airborne.

Humans can even transmit the flu to pigs, and hog workers with flu symptoms are encouraged to stay home.

“The swine industry is much more concerned about people infecting our pigs with the virus, so there’s been a sense of bio-security on farms,” Honeycutt said.