First of all: I love hogs. I love the taste of pork, bacon, brats, ribs, roasts, ham, panchetta, salami, and all of the hog-related meat. But my goodness, the pork industry is hog-tied (get it?!) about the name "swine flu."
Today, the World Health Organization changed it's nomenclature from "Swine influenza" to "Influenza A (H1N1)." I have a lot of friends in marketing and public relations, and this bad boy needs a new name.
Anyway, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control is still using the term "swine flu" and so are we at WCCO. My boss, news director Scott Libin, sent out this note today, explaining:
I am not yet convinced we should stop calling the current potential pandemic “swine flu” and start calling it “H1N1” (with or without the various extra terms attached). I will continue to review the issue over the next several hours, but as of a few minutes ago, the Web site of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, continues to use both terms – one for the disease and one for the virus. What concerns me most is this passage, from the CDC site:
Is the H1N1 swine flu virus the same as human H1N1 viruses?
No. The H1N1 swine flu viruses are antigenically very different from human H1N1 viruses and, therefore, vaccines for human seasonal flu would not provide protection from H1N1 swine flu viruses.
That indicates to me that the term “H1N1” is not associated only with the disease currently in the news, but also with other, more routine flu viruses. Note that the CDC distinguishes the new one using the clinical designation and the term “swine.”
I understand that the pork industry has a different and very pastionate position on this. We have reported repeatedly and will continue to report that swine flu cannot be contracted by eating pork. However, at this point, I do not believe it serves the cause of accuracy and clarity to replace the term “swine flu” entirely in our reporting.
My view: the pork industry needs to chill out. I still enjoy the flavor of chicken, even though some people die of the chicken pox. We've reported over and over again that you can't get swine flu from eating pork. Changing the name isn't going to change the problem, at this point. And no one's going to call it Influenza A H1N1. If the name needs to be changed, it should be called North American flu, because most flu outbreaks are named after locations (Hong Kong flu for example).
UPDATE: An oppposing view from Jim Stachowski: " The press needs to get with a name that is not affecting peoples income. Our hog producers are being hurt and losing money because some uninformed people are not smart enough to understand there is no relationship between pork and this disease."
UPDATE: Pork Industry press release. And from CBS News: "STATIONS: Please be advised that, effective immediately, the News Division is going to refer to the swine flu as H1N1. In copy they may reference it as: also known or previously known as the swine flu."
