USA - Industry battles social media over flu misinformation

By Lisa M. Keefe on 4/28/2009
MeatingPlace.com

The pork industry was facing plenty of challenges before the swine flu outbreak became a story over the weekend. Now the industry is attempting to engage — and correct — the vast social media networks that are spreading misinformation about the virus.

Bloggers, Facebook posts and Twitter are among the non-moderated networks through which many consumers spread information about and read up on issues. By Monday afternoon, Facebook had more than 100 "group" Web pages dedicated to swine flu.

Wrote one Facebook poster: "MmMmM BACON. & all you have to deal with is a little fever nausea and diarrhea and a chance of death but other than that your cool!" (sic).

Among bloggers, a large number are spreading the word from the CDC, WHO and the Obama administration that the virus is mis-named, treatable with medicines such as Tamiflu and unrelated to swine so far.

Others, however, are picking up and repeating a story that appeared in a Mexican newspaper near the town where the outbreak seems to have started, in which residents (not the authorities) blame a nearby pig production facility. "Swine-flu outbreak could be linked to Smithfield factory farms" is the headline on a blog entry on the Grist site by food editor Tom Philpott, himself co-founder of Maverick Farms, an educational, non-profit farm in North Carolina.

(Smithfield's business unit has not been named by any authorities of the Mexican government as a possible culprit. The company, in a statement on its Web site, said it has "found no clinical signs or symptoms of the presence of swine influenza ... in Mexico," and that the Mexican businesses "routinely administer influenza virus vaccination ... and conduct monthly tests for the presence of swine influenza.")

Twitter seems particularly adept at spreading misinformation, with such statements as "Swine flu? Wow. All that pork infecting people … " and "pigs are the reason for swine flu, don't eat pork."

Industry intervention

Industry groups and government officials are doing their best to battle the pandemic of inaccuracies. Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley tweeted his own message on Twitter: "U can't get swine flu from eating pork. Eatup. Regardless of epidemic."

The world organization for animal health OIE in Paris released a statement noting "it is not justified to name this disease swine influenza" and positing that the name be changed to "North American influenza" due to its geographic origins.

North American Meat Processors Association, American Meat Institute, National Meat Association, National Pork Producers Council and the Pork Board also released statements decrying the fear that pork could infect humans.

And from Sunday evening to Monday afternoon, Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack released two statements about the outbreak and the safety of pork and USDA published a Q&A about the virus. (See USDA has answers on swine relationship to hybrid influenza, on Meatingplace, April 27, 2009.)

"It is important to remember that … swine flu viruses are not transmitted by food. In fact, cooking pork to an internal temperature of 160 degrees F kills all viruses and other foodborne pathogens. Eating properly handled and cooked pork or pork products is safe," Vilsack said in a statement.

Still, it's hard to keep pace with the viral nature of social media. In the course of a five-minute search on Facebook Monday afternoon, the number of "group" Web pages dedicated to the new flu jumped to 115 from 108.