Archive for the ‘Swine Flu’ Category

Is Swine Flu a Pig/Bird Hybrid?!

Monday, May 11th, 2009

birdpig
Image Credit: Visual Culture and BioScience

Penn Bullock reports:

In March 2008, a veterinarian identified a mysterious pig pathogen at two “swine production facilities” (the official euphemism for slaughterhouses) in Illinois. It contained “genes of both swine and avian influenza viruses.”

A government inspector from the USDA-ARS Virus and Prion Diseases of Livestock Research Unit (say that three times) wrote up the discovery in an esoteric trade journal, “Agricultural Research.” The report resurfaced inanely on a news aggregator, AllBusiness.com. It noted the nebulousness of the bird-swine flu and warned that it had the potential for a deadly pandemic. What it lacked was transmissibility to and between humans.

Exactly a year later, the so-called swine flu emerged at an unidentified pig farm in North America. Swine flu is a misnomer for this mongrel virus. According to the CDC, it’s actually a combo of swine, bird and human flues from Asia and North America.

(more…)