There are two things I learned during my holidays about the novel H1N1 virus that has been infecting humans and causing terrible PR for the hog industry:
1) It’s still spreading around the world, especially in the southern hemisphere, and that’s worrying health officials in the northern hemisphere who will have to deal with it come the traditional “flu season;”
2) The term “Swine Flu” isn’t going away.
Both are a problem for the hog industry, because the ongoing nature of the sickness and the tagging of it with the word “swine” makes some people avoid pork, and makes some futures traders speculate that pork demand will be weak over the fall and winter. That’s a part of why pork prices are low right now.
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The hog industry made a heroic attempt to stop media organizations from using the term “swine flu,” arguing that that name gave a false impression to the public about the nature, source and spread of the disease. Many, mostly newspaper, media organizations switched to some form of “H1N1” as a substitute, agreeing that the other term could cause misunderstanding. But many broadcast media stuck with “swine flu,” (it sounds better to say out loud) and over my holidays I heard that term many, many times on Bloomberg TV and on CNN. Considering that those are two of the biggest news organizations on the Earth, their repeated use of the term “swine flu” is bad news for the hog industry. Not only do millions of people get their news directly from Bloomberg and CNN, but many other news organizations use them as a standard in setting their own news judgement. It’s going to be hard for the hog industry to stamp out the use of the term “swine flu” if every little radio station and local newspaper can point to Bloomberg and CNN and say: “See, they’re using it, so it must be OK.”
So that’s a battle probably lost. The hog industry might be able to redouble its efforts and beat Bloomberg and CNN into submission, but that’s a pretty long-shot of a chance. They’re used to all sorts of folks trying to spin them and aren’t likely to find hog farmers that persuasive a bunch.
So like it or not, the hog industry is probably stuck with hearing about “swine flu” for the forseeable future. I assume the hog industry is working on various plans B, C and D to deal with this reality, but whether the industry can stave off some of the blows of consumer revulsion that may come with a big outbreak of H1N1 will depend on whether there is an outbreak, if it turns out to be any worse than a normal flu, and how consumers are feeling in a couple of months.
