Gone viral

In the "well, duh" category comes this warning by Jorgen Schlundt, director of the World Health Organization's Department of Food Safety, Zoonoses and Foodborne Diseases:
"Sick animals should not enter the food chain. If you are following existing guidelines it (the virus) will not get into the human food chain," he said in an e-mail to Reuters reporter Tan Ee Lyn today.
It is possible for flu viruses such as the new H1N1 strain to survive the freezing process and be present in thawed meat, as well as in blood, Schlundt said. But the virus that has been sending folks to the hospital has been passed from human to human by airborne transmission, not from pig to human by foodborne transmission.

This little piggy went to the hospital ...

There may be one piece of information that's gotten a bit lost in all the news about the swine flu outbreak that is believed to have originated in Mexico:  There is absolutely no evidence that it can be transmitted by eating meat, said Dr. Keiji Fukuda, assistant director general of the World Health Organization.

And in other news, a Grist magazine article connects the Mexican pork operation blamed for the outbreak with giant U.S. pork producer Smithfield. I'm not convinced that big agribusiness is evil, but I can't remember the last time a family farm started a pandemic.