Too pig to fail: Officials seek to remove “swine” from flu name to save pork industry
The Obama administration—in keeping true with their penchant for changing the names of things — is trying to stop using the word “swine” in swine flu:
U.S. pork producers are finding that the name of the virus spreading from Mexico is affecting their business, prompting U.S. officials to argue for changing the name from swine flu.
At a news briefing, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack took pains to repeatedly refer to the flu as the “H1N1 virus.”
“This is not a food-borne illness, virus. It is not correct to refer to it as swine flu because really that’s not what this is about,” Vilsack said.
I’m all for helping keep businesses from being victimized by the uninformed (many voters can empathize because the same thing often happens to us on Election Day), so maybe another name is in order. But what should it be?
The Obama administration has already stopped using the terms “terrorism” (now “man-caused disasters”) and “war on terror” (now “overseas contingency operation”), so there should be no problem changing the name of the “swine flu.”
How about “Virus caused disasters”? “Rosie O’Donnell fever”? The “Arnold Ziffel sniffles”? “Arlen Specter”?
As it turns out, Napolitano and Vilsack aren’t alone in their disenchantment with the “swine flu” label:
Israel has already rejected the name swine flu, and opted to call it “Mexico flu.” Jewish dietary laws forbid eating pork.
It’s not settled yet, because somebody in Israel is about to get a call from La Raza.
The Paris-based World Organization for Animal Health also objected to the name, saying the virus contains avian and human components and no pig so far has been found ill with the disease.
Translation: The name “swine flu” reeks of pigophobia
And there is growing sentiment in the farm sector to call it the North American virus — although disease expert Anthony Fauci told a Senate hearing the “swine flu” designation reflected scientific naming protocol.
“Let’s see… ‘bird flu’—been there. ‘Chickenpox’ is old. ‘Elephantitus’—did it. ‘Mad cow’—done that. ‘Monkeypox’—used it already. Yep, ‘swine’ is next on the list. Run with it…”
For U.S. pork producers the swine flu name has hurt, forcing government officials into the position of stressing that American pork is safe to eat and that other countries should not ban imports.
Isn’t the government that’s now pushing pork on us the same one that’s always telling us we’re way too fat? Confusion: the new white meat.
Pork, soybean and corn prices have fallen in the last two days, “and if this continues, obviously you have significant potential, which is why it’s important to get this right,” Vilsack said.
Are you thinking what I’m thinking? “Pork bailout!” Soon we’ll be told the industry is “too pig to fail.”
At the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, there was also talk of stripping the “swine” from swine flu, which CDC acting director Richard Besser said was leading to the misapprehension that people can catch the disease from pork.
True. If you could catch the disease from pork, much of Congress would be in Bethesda Naval Hospital heaving their worthless guts out right now.
“That’s not helpful to pork producers. That’s not helpful to people who eat pork. It’s not helpful to people who are wondering, how can they get this infection,” Besser told a briefing.
I love pork. I also love sausage, pork chops and barbeque. The fact that it never occurred to me to stop eating these things because of the “swine flu” means that I either bothered to learn about the facts about this virus, or am willing to die for bacon. Truth be told, I think it’s a little of both.
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But it’s okay to eat Mexicans?
Why not, they renamed the war on terror so why not rename a few diseases? Eventually, when all of their insane polices come crashing down upon their heads they’ll have to rename themselves for the sake of anonymity.
swine flu
swine flu
swine flu
swine flu
swine flu
screw them.
Let’s see.
Add this to the list of other taboos:
“I now pronounce you man and wife.”
“God bless you.”
“One nation, under God.”
“Obama is only half-black.”
Maybe they ought to rename their new acquisition, “General Motors”.
duh1 has never been a General.
I don’t remember any such terminological concern about the “swine” part of the term “swine flu” back in the mid-70s.
Some may remember that that was the time of the swine flu vaccine associated with an increased number of cases of Guillain-Barre syndrome.
I suppose we should not be surprised by anything that this dangerous, collectivist/socialist/statist, adolescent administration pulls out of its @$$.
Obama Flu? I have had symptoms of that one since November 5th.
Or, just plain ole Pandemic Flu will work for me.
Human Flu. Swine Flu. Bird Flu. When Pigs Fly flu. Or, revive the pigman episode of Seinfeld and call it The Pigman Flys Flu. Now you have all the elements – Man, Pig, Bird.
I’ll have to think about that: my cousin-in-law (if there is such a title) is a pig feeder. Pigophobia would not be allowed. But if there ARE people dumb enough (think Liberals) to think you can get flu from pork chops I see a wonderful opportunity!
Vegetable flu
Dairy Flu
Fruit Flu (I wish)
Grain flu
Water flu
What was that post, Starve the Beast? Ah, a sick mind is a terrible thing to waste.
That tears it, I am now re-naming the Banana to Yellow. If an orange is Orange and called an Orange – why not?
This thing started in Mexico, so call it Mexican Flu.
Nope, no problem with that!
“I pledge allegiance to the flag.”
“One nation with liberty and “justice” for all.”
“dear leader is half-white.”
I suggest the “Garofalo-Olbermann Virus”. Swine are swine regardless of species.
That would be racist.
Ok, then call it La Raza flu.
The Flu that we shall not speak of Flu.
We should just call it the Liberal Flu. They sicken most people, so it seems to fit.
Barry flu.
Sebiliusitis.
It just occurred to me…
Hussein took office and brought pestilence with him.
Calling it anything but H1N1 flu is racist or just politicaly incorrect.
Bad conservatives. No cookie.
I already have grain flu (aka celiac).
I read that Egypt is slaughtering ALL pigs because of the swine flu. Isn’t Egypt a muslim country? Why do they have pigs there anyway?
Better run out & buy up your chops & ribs before JN outlaws pork & pigs become extinct.
The swine flu isn’t that bad, yet. And hopefully never.
Remember the panic over the bird flu? It took much longer to get this bad. This administration is almost trying to make this worse by using the liberal approach to deasie control. You know, educate and rename it to death.
They have large christian minorities.
For now anyway.
The flu that dares not speak its name.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123310466514522309.html
Wonder what plans this (here I go again,…but, it’s true….) dangerous, collectivist/socialist/statist, adolescent administration has in store for us, especially with regard to health care/medicine; using its response to this swine flu situation as its justification?
Since Jan doesn’t like the term ‘Swine Flu’, let’s name this creeping crud after her:
‘Bull Dyke Influenza’
Is it really hurting the pork industry? I plan on making ribs this weekend purely as an act of vengance against our porcine nemesis. (and because they taste good)
So the president, that claims he knows how important education is, wants to abandon teaching and go for a name swap. I am truely depressed.
I would have bet that the resident Muslim-at-heart would have tossed the pig under the bus, but I guess it’s too crowded with right-wing extremists.
I read 1984 long ago and this world we live in is paralleling this in a frightening way. “Blackwhite: The ability to accept whatever “truth” the party puts out, no matter how absurd it may be. Orwell described it as “…loyal willingness to say black is white when party discipline demands this. It also means the ability to believe that black is white, and more, to know black is white, and forget that one has ever believed the contrary”.
The Classic Doublethink: “To know and not to know, to be conscious of complete truthfulness while telling carefully constructed lies, to hold simultaneously two opinions which cancelled out, knowing them to be contradictory and believing in both of them, to use logic against logic, to repudiate morality while laying claim to it, to believe that democracy was impossible and that the Party was the guardian of democracy, to forget whatever it was necessary to forget, then to draw it back into memory again at the moment when it was needed, and then promptly to forget it again: and above all, to apply the same process to the process itself. That was the ultimate subtlety: consciously to induce unconsciousness, and then, once again, to become unconscious of the act of hypnosis you had just performed. Even to understand the word ‘doublethink’ involved the use of doublethink.”
Does anyone else see these parallels or am I just paranoid.
I guess “ho-flu” would be out of the question also?
I think we are all forgetting Ades Diet Candy so, yeah, people are easily swayed by a word or two. Remember what “Hope ad Change” did to people. Made a bunch of them instantly stoopid.
“Too pig to fail: Officials seek to remove “swine” from flu name to save pork industry”
I’m sure Washington will find a way to save the pork [industry]
I may be mis-remembering, but as I recall the avian flu was only transmitted to humans by infected birds, never from human to human. That’s the difference, that this “swine flu” has mutated so that it is now being spread from human to human without direct contact with infected pigs.
I like the MOHAMMAD FLU! Just trade one pig name for another.
Let’s call it the MOHAMMAD FLU, and see how many people around the world die from the outrage.
That would be offensive to ahhh humm ummm someone I am sure so no cookie for you either!!!!
No its me, I was thinking of SARS. So many flu scares…
Unclean influenza
Vilsack is Iowa’s contribution to this so-called “administration”. (I’m sorry…) He’s worried about the impact on all our hog farmers’ pocket books. Sadly, there is probably some validity to his concerns. Large numbers of Obama-voting Americans don’t take the time to educate themselves on reality – they just take their information from MSM sound bites.
Personally, I hope the hog market drops – it’ll give me an opportunity to fill my freezer cheaply.
that explains why Iowa went for him…along with the rest of the country…
Call me a skeptic.My senses tell me they are trying to sell a”Pig in a poke”to cover the total disaster they have become.
I don’t believe you are being paranoid at all.
You might find “The Ominous Parallels”, by Leonard Peikoff, which I just finished, at the same time interesting and disturbing.
He discusses Weimar Germany, and especially the dangerous, nihilist philosophy behind it; with the concomitant empty, pornographic, silly, stupid art and thinking that it spawned…almost exactly what we in the West have been witnessing for the past 40-45 years.
The book was published in late 1982/early 1983; but, and this is no exaggeration, it could have been written last week.
I put up with his occasional comments about the Church’s in some ways being part of the problem; but, these comments are a very minor annoyance, and do not diminish the value of the book, and the documented historic parallels – not mere opinions – that it draws and lays out for the reader.
This is racist of course, but I haven’t seen a name associated with the infant death. Was it by any chance the child of an illegal? Just wondering. Don’t shoot me please.
May offend the leftover hippies from the 60′s-70′s and some of the students in out universities.
No cookie for you either – try again.
Definitely aresident of Mexico. Parents brought to US to seek medical treatment. Unclear if they came across legally or illegally.
How about Taco Flu?
Not that large anymore. About 10%, I believe, with persecution on the rise. Of course, killing all the pigs will only adversely affect non-Muslims. Health reasons — or just another opportunity to persecute Egypt’s dwindling Christian minority?
I think we should call it for what it is. The Wetback flu.
granite said:
I will find it and read it. Perhaps I just think too much but I have tried to point these things out to people and the stock answer I receive is” Well, thats just the way it is and there is nothing we can do about it so we will live with it”. That really takes me aback.
Just because you’re paranoid, doesn’t meant they aren’t out to get you.
Call it the “Run for the Border Flu”. My apologies to Taco Bell.
Lets see:
Call it Swine Flu”
Stupid people stop eating pork because of the name.
Pork prices drop.
MORE BBQ RIBS FOR ME!
Why is this bad?
We must all learn to stop Porcine profiling.
Undocumented Flu
The. Flu.
Never underestimate the stupidity of the world’s population.
When even the governments of countries like China and Russia don’t understand the basic workings of a flu virus and how it’s NOT related to food, even though thousands die from the flu every year, you know you’re truly in Alice’s Wonderland.
I think we’ll have porkchops in their honor tonight.
the rosie odonnell flu, and the arnold ziffel sniffle. are we sure duh one and shaka toots didn’t bring this PANDEMIC back and unleash it on an unsuspecting nation?
Democrat Flu
Great work to MM for the great article as usual.
… I don’t know if anyone happened to notice this yesterday, but during the press conference Napolitano was speaking to, she appeared made the usual statements and then stepped aside for the next speaker – you might guess, HHS Secretary? Nope. CDC Director? Nope. A (yet to be named) Surgeon General? Nada. Then, Tom Vilsack – Sec. of Ag. proceeded to proclaim how safe our pork products were (yadda, yadda, yadda…) and that they were not at all affected by the H1N1 virus.
Hey Obama Administration: how about a little less pandering to the pork lobby (yes, in more ways than one – dual meaning, if you get my drift…) and deal with the public safety issue first and foremost?
The Flu formerlly known as “Swine Flu”
I know why they need to re-name it. Because people are too STUPID to understand that it is not caused by eating pork! Seriously, our general population is just plain dumb. Too busy twittering to become informed about anything. It is truly frightening to behold. A reporter caught up with Paris Hilton yesterday and asked her if she was afraid of catching swine flu. Her answer? “I don’t eat that.” I heard it with my own ears.
A good time to fill your freezer with chops, roasts, sausages, etc. Probably real cheap right about now. I know I’m going to!
Israel is calling it the Mexican flu in the spirit of truth in labeling. Iran is calling it the Jew flu in the spirit that Jews are to be blamed for everything.
I like NAFTA flu.
As a Minnesotan, I would vote for that one!
PETA flu?
Hmmm, first a pork bill and now a pork flu. Coincidence?
What’s the big deal? Pig-Man-Bird Flu is too tedious a term but I would try to protect the image of my industry too. Remember the Gay Plague moniker for AIDS in the 1980s? Accurate but it upset homosexuals to no end.
I do like my center cut pork chops with mashed potatoes and a soy sauce-marmelade chutney.
And yes, the Mexican government has already gone public in declaring this to be unjustified, inaccurate, unfair… blah, blah, etc.
/rolls eyes…
Take heart Doug. CW went through this all of the time.
The pork and beef industries will do just fine without the interference of Congress and the Omamatrons.
Non-kosher viral infection
I can’t believe that nobody’s called it BACON! So, how about: Baconfluenza?
Michelle,
If you want to write articles like this that do not upset the DHS Thought Police, you are going to need a Newspeak Translator.
I found this at the Daily Doubter.
http://dailydoubt.blogspot.com/2006/07/newspeak-translator.html
One of these could make you the darling of the Left.
Mexican flu works for me. Simple, accurate.
Now awaiting a visit from Department of Homeland Security for my extremist attitude.
Fair enough, why dont we rename it to “Napolitano Flu”.
I think this was originally covered in the bible. Isaiah 5-20.
I’m going with Nappyflu. Since we have no HHS director or Surgeon General, Napolitano can take the lead. Nappy has a nice UN-PC tone to it too.
Lets call it the “100 Days of Obama Flu.”
If you call it Napolitano flu, Obama voters will stop eating ice cream.
Ooops, sorry, ‘my bad’!
Good work Doug
With Nappyflu, You tell the afflicted to just lay down and take a nap. Yes, many won’t get up but it will have a nice calming affect on the masses. Isn’t that what they want, a nanny so to speak , to take care of them. “lay down sweetie, you have the Nappyflu, everything will be alright”.
How about combining two events and call it:
Scare Farce One flu over the 9/11 site on orders from the cuckoo’s nest.
I know – it’s over reaching.
I am becoming very sick of this administration war on language accuracy. If this is the correct scientific classification, stick with it. On the other hand, “Obama’s 100 Day Flu”, has a nice ring to it.
Mexico or Mexican Flu works for me just fine. I guess I am ……. Raciiiissssttttttt!
Son, you in BIG trouble now and the Bull Dykes On Bikes Police will pay you a visit as soon as they get over the NappyFlu-not to be confused with the NappyHeadedHosFlu. (Does Al the Sharpie read this?)
Think I’ll have a BLT for lunch
Don’t ya just love how it’s now about the Pork industry? Good ole, washed up political coattail rider Vilsack, riding in to save the day (and I guess Iowa) by saying how dare we call this a SWINE FLU… even if it was the originating source. Wasn’t there a report out that the source of the contagion was a farm in Mexico? Vilsack really needs to put his superman outfit away because if it takes a “swine flu” to ruin an entire industry, it really makes you wonder how strong that industry was to begin with.
Didn’t Harkin defend the use of stimulus bucks to back some study of pig poop? Why does Iowa and the pork industry in particular think they’re so freaking important? Perhaps, they’re angling for more federal subsidies and bailouts? Hmmmm….
Nobody is blaming the virus on pig products per se. Yet the hyper overreaction to the NAMING of a virus really indicates how delicate and fragile the pork industry must be. They need to toughen up… if they weren’t already so soft from Harkin’s and Vilsack’s coddling.
This from the same group of coullion dunces who wish to redefine the word ‘marriage.’
I’m partial to ‘Jackass Flu’ myself.
Vilsack? Does he make pickles or it that the fungus amongus?
Looks like you folks are wrong again:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_h-vL65j-zk&feature=player_embedded
Remember that Al Gore warned us about this: View Comedy Channel episode ManBearPig.
OK, he meant to say ManBirdPig, but even erudite scientists can make mistakes.
The greatest threat to mankind—
Out (temporarily): Manbearpig
In: Manbirdpig
So people are smart enough to know that “swine” means “pig,” but they’re too stupid to understand that the manbirdpig flu (aka Freakout of the Week) isn’t a food-borne illness.
Oh. Maybe the administration’s got a point.
Heh, I knew I wasn’t the only one thinking of it.
George at Urbansurvival.com had this one:
Flying Pig Flu
I think it’s the best ’cause we’ll know the truth (and proper treatment protocols) when PIGS FLY.
McCain Flu…
My collie says:
Any day now, Johnnie will be introducing new legislation for “comprehensive influenza reform”.
My collie says:
They think we’re stoopid.
The “Israel calls it Mexico flu” line just aint’ so – maybe the government, but not the press.
If it becomes a full blown epidemic, it will be called the “Bush Flu” by the Administration.
Got to stay with the theme you know.
I thought the flu was named after the city in shich the first cases were found.
I remember the Hong Kong flu and the London flu when I was a kid.
So, this could be the Mexico City flu – or something else more appropriate.
How about “Flu Deluxe”?
Any way we can get Congress to junket down to Mexico? Getting swine flu would be poetic justice for those trillion dollar porkers.
I read H1N1 as “Heiney” and it sort of fits. The Heiney Flu : renamed by the Asses of America.
How about Juan Hernandez’s Revenge?
“If you’re really neurotic you think 159 cases is a pandemic” flu?
Goreball would say “the science is settled. You must be an Anthropogenic Global Flu denier!”
H(one)N(one) virus, shortened to “Ho-No a virus!” Why not refer to it as the National Health Care Contingency Plan Virus?
So, how bad is this form of virus compared to the regular form? Last year, 36,000 people died from influenza in the U.S. So far, ONE two year old Mexican child died in the U.S. this year. Let me translate this in Obamanese;
This is a “crisis” we cannot afford to waste. Now’s the time to rush through our health care agenda!