Don't Hang the Pigs

When I first heard Sec. Vilsack ask us to use "H1N1" as the name for this new flu virus I laughed. After hearing what's going on in Egypt, with the slaughter of all the nation's pigs in the name of "disease prevention," I'm not laughing anymore.

While I would love to know if there is a correlation between industrial swine operations, with their manure lagoons, and the spread of the disease to humans, I don't blame the pigs. I doubt the government or the industry is going to admit if such a relationship exists. But isolated pigs, feral ones, or ones being kept as pastured pigs, aren't going to attracting the scads of flies that would come to an industrial operation. Certainly the pigs play a vital role in the Egyptian society, whether as a food source or as a part of the "clean up crew." Government agents aren't even discussing how they will deal with the aftermath of such a slaughter, especially in Cairo, where pigs are used as a part of the solid waste disposal system in that city.

I understand how scary this outbreak is. But there are certain assumptions being spread, not promoted, by the Internet and the media, make no sense. Keeping pigs does not necessarily invite the disease. Eating pork, if properly cooked as always, does not invite the disease. And, avoiding pigs doesn't necessarily avoid the flu, as obviously most of the people in the US who have contracted it have had no contact with pigs. The cat is out of the bag. And nature was going to make this particular "cat" somewhere, some day. Now it's time we learned how to take care of ourselves again.

That doesn't mean medicate up to wazoo. It means being considerate when you're not feeling well. It means washing your hands well, and often. I still think good old soap and water is the best solution, not alcohol soaps all the time. "Anti-Bacterial soaps" may make you feel better for the short term, but if H1N1 or other "germs" mutate to be resistant to such scrubs, then what do we have? The practices we need to recall are the ones our ancestors practiced last century and for centuries before that: Eat well, Get lots of sleep, Avoid contact with others if you're sick and stay away from people who are sick. Is that paycheck more important than the lives of your co-workers? We can't medicate our way out of this mess. Nature and time will work it out, if we let them. Meanwhile, being safe and considerate is a better practice than blaming the pigs