-
Staff Photo by Margaret Fenton Sequatchie Cove Farm owner Bill Keener, who raises about 40 pigs on the sustainable 300-acre farm west of Chattanooga, says there is very little risk of contracting swine flu from eating pork products or being around the animals.
Bill Keener is satisfied with the soundness of his swine.
At his farm in Sequatchie, Tenn., he’s confident that his pigs are healthy and is not concerned about any risk of his employees getting swine flu. His small farm specializes in rare breeds of swine, raised in a natural environment without hormones or other chemicals, he said.
“We know who is coming in contact with all the animals, and it’s a very small number,” Mr. Keener said. “There might be a concern at bigger farms where there are all sorts of employees, but it’s not here.”
But such assurances from pig farmers around the world hasn’t made them any less nervous that the pork market may take a nose-dive after years of improving prices.
“I think any time you have that word association, there is a concern about the impact on the market,” said Charles Lancaster, UGA cooperative extension service agent in Catoosa County, Ga. “I’m sure it could have an impact.”
no known infections
The National Pork Board and local extension services are trying to spread the word that no U.S. herd of swine is known to be infected, according to a statement from the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
National health officials this week joined with others in the pork industry, U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack urged the media to call swine flu by its technical name: “H1N1.”
“This really isn’t swine flu,” Mr. Vilsack said in a written statement. “It’s H1N1 virus. That’s very, very important. And it is significant, because there are a lot of hardworking families whose livelihood depends on us conveying this message of safety.”
The World Health Organization announced Thursday it will would stop using the term “swine flu” to avoid confusion over the danger posed by pigs.
The policy shift came a day after Egypt began slaughtering thousands of pigs in a misguided effort to prevent swine flu, according to The Associated Press.
limited access to protect pigs
Although the USDA has asked pork producers to limit access to their pigs by the general public, it’s to prevent humans from passing the mutated H1N1 virus to swine.
Being around swine, living downwind from a pig farm or consuming pork is not believed to be a factor in the transmission of H1N1, health officials say.
But washing hands after contact with the animals is recommended to prevent the spread of regular swine flu.
Requests this week by the Times Free Press to visit swine herds in Franklin County, Tenn., the largest pork-producing county in the region, were turned down because of such increased bio-security measures.
The normal variety of swine flu is not uncommon among livestock and it can be spread from pig to human. And regular human flu can be spread to pigs.
But the current strain of flu that could be deadly to some humans is a mutation, a combination of swine flu, human flu and avian flu, health officials say.
It is spread from human to human and may be transmittable from human to pig, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Adam Crisp covers education issues for the Times Free Press. He joined the paper's staff in 2007 and initially covered crime, public safety, courts and general assignment topics. Prior to Chattanooga, Crisp was a crime reporter at the Savannah Morning News and has been a reporter and editor at community newspapers in southeast Georgia. In college, he led his student paper to a first-place general excellence award from the Georgia College Press Association. He earned ...
Or login with:
New Account