FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Wednesday, April 29, 2009

For more information contact:
Bill Clary

(502) 564-1137

Pork consumption not a risk factor for swine flu.

In response to public questions, Agriculture Commissioner Richie Farmer today reiterated that concerns over the worldwide outbreak of H1N1 flu should not extend to eating pork.

“The experts at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control have made it quite plain: you cannot get swine flu from eating pork,” Commissioner Farmer said. “Epidemiologists have told me that the strain which has prompted health officials to issue alerts is very different from any disease found in hogs, and that the current spread of the disease is from human-to-human transmission, and not from either the consumption of pork or from contact with hogs.”

According to the CDC, most influenza viruses are not spread by food, and U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said earlier this week that no food safety issues related to this outbreak have been identified.

The Commissioner has been in contact with Federal and other state agricultural officials and said this virus subtype has never been identified in hogs in the United States or anywhere else in the world.

Commissioner Farmer noted that even if a pig did have the disease, it would not enter the U.S. food supply because it would not pass Federal inspection.

Mike Oveson, Executive Director of the Kentucky Pork Producers Association said that his organization is encouraging pork producers to tighten their biosecurity procedures to protect their animals from infection. More information for producers is available at the National Pork Producers Council website at http://www.nppc.org.

Last week, Commissioner Farmer directed the state’s livestock diagnostic laboratories to begin testing swine tissue samples for the H1N1 virus as a precautionary measure. To date, no evidence of the virus has been uncovered.