Animal farm: pig in the middle

摘要

When animal pathogens make the leap into humans - as has happened with the 2009 pandemic virus that originated in swine - animal-health scientists can find themselves in an awkward position. Unlike their colleagues in public health, who focus their energies on protecting the planet's 6.8 billion humans, animal-health specialists tend to work through government agencies, whose primary mission is to promote and protect national and international livestock and meat trade.rnThis focus on commerce can sometimes lead to conflicts of interest, as well as some policy positions that border on denial. Since the first outbreaks of the 2009 pandemic virus in the United States and Mexico, for example, the Paris-based World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) has expended considerable energy trying to keep people from calling the virus 'swine flu'. The OIE's quite legitimate concern is that this nomenclature might adversely affect trade, with countries taking unnecessary measures such as culling herds, or invoking trade bans on pigs and pork. From a strictly scientific point of view, however, there is abundant genetic evidence that the name is appropriate. It is a reassorted swine influenza virus that has jumped from pigs to humans.