# What is the truth about Swine Flu? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [April 28, 2009, 3:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-truth-about-swine-flu/494623 "2009-04-28T15:30:03Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 18\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2009, 12:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-truth-about-swine-flu/494623/21 "2009-04-29T00:58:42Z")
> [@Zyada](#): > > Don’t forget airplanes and airports. :eek: Oh yes, locked up in a tube for several hours, breathing the same air. ---
**Author:** ![HorseloverFat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/8e8cbc/32.png) [@HorseloverFat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HorseloverFat)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2009, 1:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-truth-about-swine-flu/494623/22 "2009-04-29T01:05:32Z")
\*How many have died so far of swine flu in Mexico? Out of a country of how many million? \* That doesnt make sense. The real question is how many died out of how many infected not how many died vs country population. I mean a 50% mortality rate is terrible regardless if youre in China or Luxembourg. A disease with a 50% mortality rate thats spreading quickly is scary regardless of national origin. Virus dont see borders, they just see hosts. ---
**Author:** ![SoulFrost](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f07891/32.png) [@SoulFrost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SoulFrost)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2009, 2:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-truth-about-swine-flu/494623/23 "2009-04-29T02:25:16Z")
A local newspaper printed this information from the CDC and DHS: > [@](#): > > • People cannot get swine influenza from eating pork or pork products. Most influenza viruses, including the swine flu virus, are not spread by food. > • Eating properly handled and cooked pork products is safe. > • No food safety issues have been identified, related to the flu. > • Preliminary investigations have determined that none of the people infected with the flu had contact with hogs. > • The virus is spreading by human-to-human transmission. > > The CDC recommends the following measures to prevent the transmission of flu: > • Cover your nose and mouth with a tissue when you cough or sneeze. > • Throw the tissue in the trash after you use it. > • Wash your hands frequently and use alcohol-based sanitizers. > • Try not touch surfaces that may be contaminated with the flu virus. > • Avoid close contact with people who are sick. > • Try to stay in good general health. > • Get plenty of sleep, be physically active, manage your stress, drink plenty of fluids, and eat nutritious food. > > Detailed information and updates on the flu outbreak may be obtained at: > Texas Department of State Health Services [http://www.dshs.state.tx.us/](http://www.dshs.state.tx.us/) (then click on Swine Flu ) > Centers for Disease Control and Prevention [http://www.cdc.gov/swineflu/](http://www.cdc.gov/swineflu/) > > If you own swine, consider the following practices to enhance the biosecurity on your farm to prevent the disease from being transmitted to your herd: > • Workers should shower and change into farm-specific clothes and shoes before entering swine facilities. > • Establish, implement and enforce strict sick leave policies for workers presenting influenza-like symptoms. > • Recommend that workers with symptoms be seen by a medical provider immediately. > • Restrict the entry of people into your facility to only workers and essential service personnel. > • Prevent international visitors from entering your facilities. > • Ensure adequate ventilation in facilities to minimize re-circulation of air inside animal housing facilities. > • Vaccinate pigs against the influenza virus. Vaccination of pigs can reduce the levels of virus shed by infected animals > • Contact your swine veterinarian if swine exhibit flu-like or respiratory illness, especially if the onset or presentation of the illness is unusual. > • Notify your Texas Animal Health Commission area office or the Austin headquarters at 800-550-8242, after you have contacted your veterinarian. > > The Texas Animal Health Commission is ready to assist with on-farm investigations, if pigs are present where a known human case has occurred, and to assist with epidemiological investigations with any human cases that may have links to swine in Texas. > > More information for producers may be obtained at: > National Pork Producers Council [http://www.nppc.org/](http://www.nppc.org/) > Texas Pork Producers Association [http://www.texaspork.org/](http://www.texaspork.org/) ---
**Author:** ![Zyada](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zyada/32/3028_2.png) [@Zyada](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zyada)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2009, 1:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-truth-about-swine-flu/494623/24 "2009-04-29T13:17:20Z")
Here is an excellent article on the problems with reporting on the Swine Flu and where we are at with the knowledge currently. [Sound the Alarm? A Swine Flu Bind](http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/28/health/28docs.html?partner=rss&emc=rss) ---
**Author:** ![Sailboat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sailboat/32/461_2.png) [@Sailboat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sailboat)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2009, 6:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-truth-about-swine-flu/494623/25 "2009-04-29T18:47:07Z")
> [@dracoi](#): > > It’s not what I’m saying at all. I’ll divide my point into two sub-points: > > 1. How many people died from malaria yesterday? One every thirty seconds, or about 3,000 per day, 700,000 per year ([cite](http://www.themercury.co.za/index.php?fSectionId=283&fArticleId=2495241)). Where is the media frenzy for that? What we’re responding to with swine flu is not a reasonable, logical approach. It’s a highly emotional approach based on a skewed perception of immediacy and danger. There are real diseases killing today - right this instant - and yet they don’t get into the news. But the people holding a press conference on swine flu in New York today are not concerned that malaria will sweep into New York City this week. And I do see media frenzy for malaria pretty regularly – just try to say something nice about Rachel Carson, and a pro-DDT person pops up like a prairie dog and blames her for the malaria epidemic. ---
**Author:** ![alfabex](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3bc359/32.png) [@alfabex](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alfabex)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2009, 10:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-truth-about-swine-flu/494623/26 "2009-04-29T22:35:52Z")
I’m wondering something about the WHO’s alert levels. How high have they gotten in the past? Right now it’s at level 5, one right below pandemic. Has this ever happened before? How does this compare to other outbreaks like SARS? ---
**Author:** ![FoieGrasIsEvil](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foiegrasisevil/32/16638_2.png) [@FoieGrasIsEvil](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FoieGrasIsEvil)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2009, 11:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-truth-about-swine-flu/494623/27 "2009-04-29T23:27:21Z")
> [@alfabex](#): > > I’m wondering something about the WHO’s alert levels. How high have they gotten in the past? Right now it’s at level 5, one right below pandemic. Has this ever happened before? How does this compare to other outbreaks like SARS? I don’t think it does compare, but is more a reflection of the uncertainty surrounding this particular strain of influenza. I for one am somewhat concerned, mostly for mine and other’s children. Daycare centers and schools would be fertile breeding grounds for this shit, and kids don’t wash their hands or practice as good of hygiene as adults do, in general. ---
**Author:** ![Public\_Animal\_No.9](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Public\_Animal\_No.9](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Public_Animal_No.9)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2009, 12:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-truth-about-swine-flu/494623/28 "2009-04-30T00:50:45Z")
I think there is a big reason why flu and SARS got and are getting so much more attention than, say, malaria. Malaria isn’t something that is transmitted person-to-person, so the threat of it spreading is limited. Cholera is the same way. Those may both be terrible diseases taking horrible tolls of life, but they’re not going to endanger people who are not in specific locations. Malaria and cholera are also not going to infect the health-care workers and lead to potentially serious damage to the health-care system. That is one of the major underlying fears about new infectious diseases - that our ability to treat the disease and bring it under control would be seriously damaged. The media certainly heats up the stories of infectious disease spread, but having just returned from a business trip to Mexico that was aborted by the flu outbreak, I can guarantee you that the people there are extremely nervous about the situation. It’s not clear how contagious this strain is, but I’d much rather see too much hype than a ho-hum attitude that resulted in more deaths than would have otherwise happened. ---
**Author:** ![tumbleddown](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e9bcb4/32.png) [@tumbleddown](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tumbleddown)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2009, 1:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-truth-about-swine-flu/494623/29 "2009-04-30T01:06:42Z")
> [@Duckster](#): > > If swine flu is going to cause problems, it will be economics and politics. Taking the hype to the extreme, there is the potential that the economy can stall, if not further decline because the “social distancing” caused by the illness prevents people from interacting and conducting business. Or because people believe hype. CNN and MSNBC reported on Monday that the stock market closed down **because** of the flu outbreak and related fears. It’s a ridiculous assertion on its faceL even if traders were concerned about the flu and traded differently as a result, the reality is still that the stock market closed down because of the wall to wall, nonstop, light-on-facts chatter about it on, ironically, CNN and MSNBC. It’s the sort of thing that can easily turn into self-fulfilling prophecy. > [@Public\_Animal\_No.9](#): > > It’s not clear how contagious this strain is, but I’d much rather see too much hype than a ho-hum attitude that resulted in more deaths than would have otherwise happened. That’s a false dichotomy. We should be wishing for reasonable, fact-driven, **proportional** news coverage, not “too much hype” for the sake of safety. Too much hype won’t drive safety because people will tune it out. ---
**Author:** ![FoieGrasIsEvil](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foiegrasisevil/32/16638_2.png) [@FoieGrasIsEvil](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FoieGrasIsEvil)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2009, 2:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-truth-about-swine-flu/494623/30 "2009-04-30T02:15:40Z")
[QUOTE=tumbleddown; That’s a false dichotomy. We should be wishing for reasonable, fact-driven, **proportional** news coverage, not “too much hype” for the sake of safety. Too much hype won’t drive safety because people will tune it out.[/QUOTE] Not necessarily. People will tune it out when it stops being reported because it stops affecting our part of the world. ---
**Author:** ![Qwakkeddup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/90ced4/32.png) [@Qwakkeddup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qwakkeddup)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2009, 3:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-truth-about-swine-flu/494623/31 "2009-04-30T03:46:12Z")
> [@SoulFrost](#): > > A local newspaper printed this information from the CDC and DHS: • **People cannot get swine influenza from eating pork or pork products**. Most influenza viruses, including the swine flu virus, are not spread by food. •\*\* Eating properly handled and cooked pork products is safe\*\*. • **No food safety issues have been identified, related to the flu**. • Preliminary investigations have determined that none of the people infected with the flu had contact with hogs. • The virus is spreading by human-to-human transmission. [/QUOTE] Just this evening, my stepmother announced she didn’t want to eat the pork roast I had fixed for dinner. My father gave her the WTF look, while I laughed, and laughed. I finally helped convince her that it was safe to eat though. Had to tell her I bought it months ago, before the beginning of this whole thing. BTW, she had **bacon** for lunch! ---
**Author:** ![Public\_Animal\_No.9](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Public\_Animal\_No.9](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Public_Animal_No.9)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2009, 1:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-truth-about-swine-flu/494623/32 "2009-04-30T13:57:13Z")
> [@tumbleddown](#): > > …That’s a false dichotomy. We should be wishing for reasonable, fact-driven, **proportional** news coverage, not “too much hype” for the sake of safety. Too much hype won’t drive safety because people will tune it out. Perhaps “hype” is a poor choice of words. However, there has been a fair amount of criticism of the Mexican government because they did not begin reporting this early enough. On the other hand, had they begun reporting significantly earlier, and nothing had come of it, then they’d be criticized for generating hype and panic. People tend to tune out safety messages for a number of reasons. There are always those who die in hurricanes because they don’t - or won’t - believe the warnings. People will hear the same message in very different ways - to some it will be hype, and to others it will be reasoned warnings. So far, I haven’t seen much coverage that is not fact-driven. I suppose one could argue that coverage of potential disease spread is simply conjecture, but those projections are based on serious study, so in reality it’s much more than conjecture. I agree that one can argue that seeing such lengthy and repeated coverage - all pandemic all the time - could be too much coverage. Perhaps it’s out of proportion, perhaps not. We’ll only know for sure in retrospect. But again, in a situation like this, I think we’re better off to err on the side of caution. ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2009, 6:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-truth-about-swine-flu/494623/33 "2009-04-30T18:29:51Z")
You’d think we were facing a pandemic of Captain Trips based on the media coverage. :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![Mumio](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba9def/32.png) [@Mumio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mumio)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2009, 12:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-truth-about-swine-flu/494623/34 "2009-05-01T00:40:19Z")
> [@alfabex](#): > > I’m wondering something about the WHO’s alert levels. How high have they gotten in the past? Right now it’s at level 5, one right below pandemic. Has this ever happened before? How does this compare to other outbreaks like SARS? I thought I’d read that the WHO alert level system was put in place in 2005. I’m pretty sure this is the first time it’s been at level 5. Here’s a nice breakdown of pandemic phases: [http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/30442376/](http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/30442376/) ---
**Author:** ![Canadjun](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/76d3ee/32.png) [@Canadjun](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Canadjun)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2009, 3:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-truth-about-swine-flu/494623/35 "2009-05-01T15:36:30Z")
> [@Public\_Animal\_No.9](#): > > Malaria isn’t something that is transmitted person-to-person, so the threat of it spreading is limited. Cholera is the same way. Those may both be terrible diseases taking horrible tolls of life, but they’re not going to endanger people who are not in specific locations. Yes, but as I noted in a previous message, other forms of the flu result in thousands of deaths a year, and are transmitted person-to-person, and the public doesn’t freak out every flu season. ---
**Author:** ![Harriet\_the\_Spry](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e56c9b/32.png) [@Harriet\_the\_Spry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Harriet_the_Spry)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2009, 3:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-truth-about-swine-flu/494623/36 "2009-05-01T15:53:35Z")
Seasonal flu is generally of a type that a portion of the population has an immunity to, plus vaccinations are generally available to the populations most vulnerable to complications, subject to exposure, or likely to spread it to many others. In spite of those two differences between seasonal and swine/H1N1 flu, thousands of people still die from seasonal flu every year. Taking away immunity and vaccinations makes a difference. Also, seasonal flu deaths are concentrated among the very young and very old. That is not what has been seen in Mexico so far. They are reporting about 150 deaths of basically healthy adults from flu-like symptoms. That is not typical of seasonal flu. Finally, baseline deaths from seasonal flu are what they are. Decisions about swine/H1N1 flu should be made at the margin. ---
**Author:** ![chowder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/977dab/32.png) [@chowder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chowder)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2009, 4:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-truth-about-swine-flu/494623/37 "2009-05-01T16:40:10Z")
> [@Lumpy](#): > > You’d think we were facing a pandemic of Captain Trips based on the media coverage. :rolleyes: Indeed, some people having had swine flu are now reported to be “cured” 😉 ---
**Author:** ![mlees](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba8739/32.png) [@mlees](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mlees)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2009, 5:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-truth-about-swine-flu/494623/38 "2009-05-01T17:26:39Z")
> [@uglybeech](#): > > So this may be another overblown panic, but at some point we will be dealing with another deadly pandemic. Imagine if the kind of global public health infrastructure that exists now existed at the emergence of AIDS? How many lives potentially could have been saved? Doesn’t AIDS have a much longer incubation period, with milder syptoms? If so, I don’t think AIDS would have been stomped out quickly. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-truth-about-swine-flu/494623.md?page=1)