post #7 - kcorn

>> I am confused about the swine to people comment... there were several swine flu cases in pigs in the USA. After those pigs recovered, they were cleared to be sold as meat products. <<

OK, this is entirely my lay-person grasp of a complex subject! ;--)
do not expect a series of graphs or tables or scope-slides, LOL...
i will just try to explain *my* understanding of this.

this particular FLU Virus was **originally** an avian flu - meaning it affected birds.
then it mutated, and affected pigs - And *After* it had been in swine for awhile, it AGAIN mutated, and affected ppl.

so this particular strain of flu (there are many!) has jumped the species barrier twice to become H1N1, and has now affected a housecat *and* a ferret - which means this little critter is pretty flexible on target species. this was not anticipated or predicted, because most flu-viruses affect DISCRETE species - unless they mutate, which flu does all of the time - and that is why LAST years seasonal-flu vaccine may be entirely ineffective against THIS years seasonal flu-virus: the strains that are floating around in the human-popn have changed, in that time.


about the pigs:
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a pig can be sick with the flu, whatever strain it may be, and be perfectly SAFE! to eat... cooking to a safe-temp kills the virus stone-dead.

eating pork is safe - working with live-pigs who are stressed and whose immune function is thus compromised, at an auction, being innoculated vs other illness, etc, can expose the person handling the hogs, AND the hogs, to flu or other contagions.

i hope that makes sense? there are lots of technical details, but this is the gist...
best regards,
--- terry

terry pride, APDT-Aus, apdt#1827, CVA, IPDTA, TDF
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cooking to kill infectious organisms
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BTW, this is ** Not True ** of Prion-Dieases, which includes Chronic Wasting Disease,
released into the wild by a researcher in the Northwest who kept sheep sick with SCABIES beside wild (captive) whitetail deer. at the end of his research, this eejit turned his deer-subjects LOOSE!, thus introducing an entirely-new variant of a prion disease into healthy wild stock... where it spread, thru whitetail and into elk. the elk are kept as captive herds, in many cases, and are SOLD + SHIPPED across state-lines.

last i heard CWD was in 12 states of the 48 contiguous in the USA. :---(
cooking, autoclaving, radiation, burning, decay, NOTHING wipes out prions.
a recent study announced that the CWD-prions are trapped in the clay particles of soil, where plants absorb them + animals ingest them. their conclusion was that this is irreversible - all states with CWD are permanently contaminated, as there is no known method to remove the prions from soils.