September 14, 2009

The US Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack has urged the media to use the correct term "AH1N1" in their reports instead of the misleading "swine flu", so as to disassociate the disease from the beleaguered pork industry.

 

Vilsack said the job of the media is to get the information right and not necessarily to get it convenient. He stressed that the correct name is AH1N1, and that it is fundamentally different from swine flu and is a new virus that had never been seen before.

 

Vilsack said calling the virus "swine flu" upsets the markets and the producers unnecessary.

 

He noted that while some media outlets have been responsible and sensitive to the matter, there is no concerted effort by the media to do a good and correct job to properly characterise it. 

 

Shortly after the AH1N1 outbreak was first announced on April 24, the World Health Organisation named the virus "Influenza A", and the World Organisation for Animal Health said it never should have been named "swine flu".

 

But the media has continuously referred to the novel AH1N1 flu as swine flu. As a result, consumers shied away from pork consumption, worsening the situation of farmers who are already suffering from low prices that failed to meet the costs of production.

 

In the three weeks following initial media reports of the AH1N1 flu outbreak, cash hog prices fell sharply alongside consumer demand for pork. Some US trading partners also closed their markets to US pork over fears of "swine flu". Projected pork industry losses incurred from April 24 to year-end is nearly US$2.2 billion.