Swine Flu

 Listen carefully to this clinical observation from a doctor in Boise. “They’ll sneeze, they may cough, they’ll run a fever they may go off feed for a little while.” It’s back to school time and you might be thinking that’s a description of what can happen to your kids. It might, but that’s not who the doctor’s talking about. 

We’ve been hearing for the last few months all kinds of stories about swine flu, also known as H1N1 that could be turning into a worldwide pandemic in humans. But from a pig’s point of view, they may be calling it the people flu because believe it or not, they can contract it from humans. The doctor you just heard reporting on symptoms is Dr. Bill Barton, Idaho State Department of Agriculture’s Administrator and State Veterinarian and he’s not thinking this is any joke: “Am I concerned? Any time there’s an infection that is zoonotic , in other words transmits from humans to animals or animals to humans, we’re always at an increased state of alert.”