Now that the World Health Organization has realized that calling something the ‘Swine Flu’ has serious perception problems for pork producers, they have started referring to the strain as the H1Ni virus, and have asked media outlets to do the same. This is not the same as BSE (Mad Cow Disease). You cannot get the H1N1 flu from pork products, especially once cooked properly. But of course with people being people there is a bit of hysteria surrounding eating pork and the flu. And with politicians being their own species of swine some countries are capitalizing on the fear and promoting local hog producers, while raising embargoes against foreign producers (China and Russia).

The team at CBC Radio in Edmonton seem to be dead set against helping to dispel the myths and continue to refer to the outbreak as ‘SWINE’ flu, in capital letters. Their approach is going to have even more far reaching consequences now that the residents (one worker, 200 pigs) at an Alberta hog operation have been diagnosed with the H1N1 virus.

This group at CBC seems to be taking delight in the thought that this may be the beginnings of a worldwide pandemic.

Can’t they see that it would be much more fun to start referring to the virus as the Hini (heinie) Flu?