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Well, one reason that curbing your pork intake might have an impact on the swine flu issue is the fact that there is reason to believe that the virus developed in a factory farm, thanks to the horrendous conditions. Not mention the antibiotics that factory farmed animals are pumped up with that you end up taking into your system that ultimately make antibiotics less effective. It's a shame that the media isn't looking more closely at the ways the food industry is making us sicker. If you must eat meat, buying it from smaller, local farms means taking money away from the factory system. Factory farms are only interested in efficiency and profit; our health, much less the comfort and dignity of the animals they breed, matters not a whit.

While I agree that the regular dosing of farm animals with antibiotics is terrible, and contributes to the increase in antibiotic-resistant strains of bacteria, it should be pointed out that the flu is a virus.

I might also point out the mutation of the flu virus is a normal evolutionary process, and will happen regardless of whether animals are raised in small or large-scale operations. One theory of the deadly 1918 flu epidemic traces it back to a relatively small group of farm animals (including pigs) that were brought to Europe as food for US soldiers near the end of WW1, in a pilot-project to shorten the supply chain.

Sorry for all that bold....I clearly don't know my html codes well....

I don't like pork anyway. :P

Those are good points Metroslob and Michelle. Pork barbecue is my native food and my homestate is a big pork producer. A whiff of those farms can put you off meat for a while, if not forever.

As a biologist, I have to respectfully disagree with Michelle of Montreal.

Yes, the mutation of viruses is natural and normal. However, this occurs most rapidly in close quarters. The reason for this is that the virus can infect more animals more rapidly. The more frequently the virus "jumps" from host to host, the more it mutates. (Viruses can't replicate on their own, they must use the cellular machinery of infected hosts. In fact, every time a virus replicates, it mutates by integrating some of the host's genes into the "offspring" viruses.)

Large-scale farms necessarily have more animals than small-scale operations. They also tend to have a higher concentration of animals. These are ideal "breeding grounds" for viruses.

In any case, this is neither here nor there. Thanks to Faith for posting this entry!

I would not label anything that thwarts the socially irresponsible practice of factory farming as "unfortunate." Grrr.

I wouldn't recommend going up and licking a live pigs nose, that might get you a nasty infection.

The ethics of factory farms are a big deal, it's one reason (along with saving loads of money) that my family raises a pig and chickens every year. However that's not a practical solution for most people, and honestly there's a higher demand for meat than can be provided by small producers in the US. Something needs to be done about conditions in factory farms and the heavy use of antibiotics for a number of reasons, I just don't think swine flu is one of them. No need to make up more reasons when there are already plenty of good ones.

This is what happens whether you over cook pork (even to powder form)or under cook pork(or raw). Maybe all still eating Pig should do this test (at home, on their military base, in their church kitchen, in school labs etc.) with a glass of Coca Cola before eating pork again. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6LIdUiCzdpY

Hidden from all of us:

Realize, each trichina worm (in swine-hog-pig) lays 20,000 lavae( eggs), have 3 teeth that bites/a mouth, asexual and a digestive system. And a trichina worm grows as long as your large intestine. GOD put trichina worms (maggots) inside the Pig and Hogs not in us. Yet when eating pork cooked or uncooked we got them also. They travel our bloodstream and can feast on our blood cells. We believe that is why many of us got sickle cell anemia also. Remember, those trichina worms feast on the blood cells.

Looks like those above beat me to it: while eating pork may not directly affect your chances of getting swine flu, you are most likely supporting the conditions that help it spread. Plus, factory pork tastes nasty.

It might be a cliche, but after watching this film: http://www.hbo.com/docs/programs/deathfactoryfarm/index.html, I no longer eat pork (or other meat) unless I know where it comes from. Once I saw what is really happening on these factory farms, I wanted nothing to do with them--swine flu or otherwise. While swine flu does not come from eating pork, I think this is good opportunity to reassess our support of factory farms. While I can afford to eat farm-raised meat, I've actually decided to eat vegetarian as much as possible. So while you can't get swine flu from pork, for me, there's a pretty good reason to not eat it.

To be honest, I enjoy a good piece of meat every now and then but do not rely on it as a staple of my diet these days. That said, I bet if you look the world over, very few cultures do not eat meat of one sort or another, in fact most middle Eastern cultures eat at least lamb and veal as part of their diet, Japan and China rely on chicken and beef at the very least for at least part of their dietary intake but often in small amounts per meal and they also rely on seafood and shell fish for a greater portion of their diets that is not fruit or vegitable/grain oriented.

And if pork and beef is "bad" for you, then why are we all not dead or sick from eating it?

From a practical standpoint, large farms are necessary to enable them to help supply the food chain but I would agree that some of the practices are less than ideal and that in and of itself may be raising some of the conditions that allow things like swine flu to germinate and mutate.

In this country, we do rely too much on antibacterial agents in our daily lives along with antibiotics and thus highly resistant strains of some deseases have come about as a result so there is something to the old addage of exposure to some things helps our immune system to fight things on its own.

Well, I certainly come down on the bacon side of things, and I agree factory farms are bad in general. When I can, I buy farmer's market pork, but still buy supermarket pork shoulder roasts and loins.

But given that people are still going to eat pork, you can get some great deals this week, possibly due to drop in demand, or banning exports (both shortsighted; If you choose not to eat pork on ethical grounds, fine, but most people don't consider that, and for the most part pork is cheaper than other cuts of meat.).

My two cents.