It’s H1N1,not ‘swine flu’,insists US Agriculture Secy

US Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack stood up for pigs and hog farmers,saying their name has been dragged through the mud by people who insist on calling the A(H1N1) influenza pandemic “swine flu.”

“Each time the media uses the phrase ‘swine flu,’ a hog farmer,their workers and their families suffer,” Vilsack said in a statement on Friday.

“It is simply not fair or correct to associate the 2009 pandemic H1N1 influenza with hogs,an animal that does not play a role in the ongoing transmission of the pandemic strain,” he said.

When the new strain of flu was first reported in North America in April,even the global health authorities referred to the illness as swine flu.