Swine flu label hurting pork sales
Frederick News-Post
As the country braces for an onslaught of the H1N1 virus this fall and winter, farmers are being hit hard by low pork sales.
Labeling the H1N1 virus as swine flu continues to be a huge concern for the pork industry, said Chuck Fry, vice president of the Maryland Farm Bureau and a Point of Rocks turkey farmer.
The pork industry has lost more than $4.6 billion over the past two years and some producers have been put out of business, according to the National Pork Producers Council.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, H1N1 flu is not transmitted by food, and people cannot get H1N1 from eating or handling pork or pork products.
"If we named it a flu a Republican flu or a Democratic flu, people would be uptight about it," Fry said. "Call it a school board flu and people wouldn't send their children to school and there will be a change in the law."
Pat Langenfelder, a state farm bureau officer and owner of Grand View Farm, is one of Maryland's largest hog producers in Kent County.
The pork industry has suffered dramatically since H1N1 flu emerged earlier this year, Langenfelder said.
In August, the National Pork Producers Council requested $250 million in financial and other assistance from the USDA to help producers, who since September 2007 have lost an average of more than $21 on each hog marketed.
"Calling the virus swine flu as opposed to the scientific name, H1N1, may be cute or catchy, but it has impacted pork sales in the grocery stores, which therefore, impacts us producers when we're selling our hogs," Langenfelder said.
Associating the virus with pork is the reason that certain countries, including Russia, stopped importing the meat from the U.S., Langenfelder said.
"If I had my way, no one would be calling it swine flu, and that's not just me, it's the entire industry," Langenfelder said. "Right now, we're selling everything at a loss."
The pork producers' predicament is worsened by a dismal economy, she said.
Despite reports that the H1N1 virus is not caused by hogs, it's in the back of people's minds, Fry said.
Similarly, Fry said when Avian influenza was called bird flu, it affected chicken and turkey sales.
"God forbid if they come up with a milk flu," Fry said.
Frederick County doesn't have a large pork industry.
USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack urged reporters to refer to the virus as H1N1 flu and not "swine" flu.
"The job of the media is to get it right and not necessarily to get it convenient," Vilsack said. "To get it right, it's H1N1."
Days after April 24 when the H1N1 outbreak was first widely reported, the World Health Organization named the virus "Influenza A," and the World Organization for Animal Health said it never should have been named swine flu, Vilsack said.
To help the pork industry the USDA agreed to purchase up to $30 million of pork products, which will be used for various federal food programs. Vilsack said the USDA is working to reopen pork export markets that closed in the wake of the H1N1 flu outbreak.
"With the fall flu season weeks away, it is imperative to the livelihoods of America's 67,000 pork producers that the novel H1N1 influenza be referred by its proper name," said Don Butler, National Pork Producers Council president.
