Given the onslaught of flu season and the natural fears over human health that it brings, it is no real surprise that swine flu is in the news—a lot. Only, it’s time we stop calling it swine flu. At least, that is what U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Secretary Tom Vilsack would like from the media.This explains why the secretary is appealing to the media to stop calling the H1N1 virus the swine flu. According to Secretary Vilsack, calling H1N1 "swine flu" has hurt sales of pork and causes pain to hog farmers' bottom lines, and this is at a time when the government has agreed to buy more pork products for federal food programs—to the tune of an extra $30 million—in order to help out the struggling industry. In a conference call with reporters the secretary said U.S. hog farmers have “lost almost $5 billion since September 2007.” Of course, hog farmers haven’t been helped by the recession or the costs of feed, which achieved a record high in 2008.
According to a Denver Post story, Vilsack also told the reporters some schools are ‘“a little more hesitant to order pork than they have been in the past’” for school lunch and breakfast programs. It is worth noting, again, that H1N1 cannot be contracted by eating pork products.
Meanwhile, Reuters is reporting that the first H1N1 strain resistant to the antiviral drug Tamiflu was confirmed by the Western Australia state government today. ‘“The 38-year-old Perth man, who has a weakened immune system, initially responded to the drug but developed a resistant strain of the virus when his illness relapsed,’ the state's Department of Health said in a statement.” According to the department, there have been 13 cases worldwide of Tamiflu-resistant infections. While the Perth man remains in critical condition, Australian officials maintain that the virus has not spread to other people.
In positive H1N1 news, the Canadian Press is reporting that two vaccine makers, CSL of Australia and Novartis Vaccines and Biologics of Cambridge, MA have reported that “a single dose of vaccine induced a protective response in a high proportion of adults tested. CSL saw the robust response with one dose of 15 micrograms --the amount per strain in a seasonal flu shot --of plain vaccine. Novartis was testing half-and standard-sized doses of vaccine with a boosting additive known as an adjuvant.”
The U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) will release the results of the trials in adults and seniors today, and these results should back the findings, according to Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the NIH’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. According to the Canadian Press report, this suggests that since two doses of the vaccine may not be needed (as originally thought) now twice as many people can be covered by the vaccine.
While this is certainly good news, Dr. David Butler-Jones, chief medical officer of health in Canada, cautions that it is not yet known if one vaccine will be sufficient to cover children, teenagers, seniors, and people with compromised immune systems. As testing and trials continue, and with flu season warnings aflutter, one can be sure the “swine flu” will stay in the news.
To read the Denver Post story on Vilsack’s plea to reporters, click here.
To read the Reuters story click here.
To read the Canadian Press article click here.
Posted: 09/11/09
