Please don't call it 'swine flu,' Florida Agriculture commissioner asks

Pigs are pigs. But please call the latest mutation of the flu H1N1, not swine flu.

That's the word from Florida Commissioner of Agriculture Charles Bronson as part of a national PR campaign to disassociate the new human flu virus from swine and all its variations: hogs, ham, pork chops, ribs, bacon, sausage and hot dogs.

"The continued use of this incorrect term for the H1N1 virus contributes to a distorted perception of pork and unnecessary economic calamity for pork producers, processors and distributors," Bronson said.

With the disease expected to spread faster after school resumes, meat marketers got proactive Thursday, fearing pork sales and prices will get worse.

Since the outbreak surfaced in April, hog farmers claim they have lost more than $300 million to lower hog prices, which they estimate will rise to more than $1 billion by October.

Some countries that banned North American pork for import when the outbreak grew to pandemic status in the spring have not changed their minds. Many shoppers avoid pork even though the virus is not food-borne.

Bronson acted after returning from a Tri-National Agriculture Accord meeting in Canada, where his counterparts from big pork-producing states, Canada and Mexico asked for help getting people to stop calling it "swine flu."

The American Meat Institute started sending notes to news people they see or hear clinging to "swine flu."

The trade group and hog farmers on Thursday also tweeted or e-mailed thousands of editors, food and health reporters with a similar reminder, and the governors from eight big pork-producing states asked the White House to lend a voice.

While the virus shares a genetic marker found in swine flu (another form of the H1N1 virus was first isolated in pigs in 1930), the new strain spreading among humans is a hybrid that includes fingerprints from human and avian flus.

"It spreads from human to human, not from pork," said Tom Super, outreach director for the American Meat Institute.

Government health officials now refer to the new strain as the Novel H1N1 Flu. That's a bit long for a sound bite or headline. The Centers for Disease Control Web site relegates "swine flu" now to parentheses after the formal disease name.

Florida hasn't had much of a commercial pork industry to protect since the late 1990s.

All but a handful of farmers who raise pigs for show, as pets or for sale one hog at a time for restaurants vanished once animal rights activists in 2002 won a statewide vote that banned cramped gestation pens for pregnant pigs.

"I think we've only got one hog farmer left with more than 100 sows," said Frankie Hall, director of agriculture policy at the Florida Farm Bureau. "But every time we hear those words 'swine flu,' we know this issue is not behind us."

Mark Albright can be reached at albright@sptimes.com or (727) 893-8252.