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CNN Newsroom CNN (CNN)National Programming, DMA: 0 Apr 28 2009 3:35PM EDT Programming Type: News Est. Households/Views: 882238 Est. Publicity Value: $2813 (30 Seconds) $22504 (Total)
tomorrow may be a different report. to date, no. >> what is the point of monitoring the swine population? if you can't get this flu from swine, why check swine at all? >> because it could impact and affect the industry itself. this is more about the economics of it rather than the human side and human illness side of it. [ inaudible ] >> which is precisely the reason why we have asked and there has been a response to change the name of this. this really isn't swine flu it's h1n1 virus. it is very important and it is significant because there are hard-working families whose livelihood that depends on us conveying this message of safety. it's not just pork products but grain products. they react to positive and negative news and the livelihoods of a lot of people are at stake and we want to reinforce the fact that we're doing everything we possibly can to make sure our hog industry is sound and safe and to make sure that consumers in this country and around the world know that american products are safe. >> madam secretary, there's a report out of california that authorities there are investigating possible death from swine flu and also separately a report out of new york that hundreds of school kids may be sick with suspected swine flu. what your hearing? >> we have a number of states reporting illness and as you note, there is several cases, i think two in california. but they have not been confirmed that those are actually a product of h1n1. those diagnoses are going on. let me lay some ground work here for you. it is very likely that we will see more serious presentation of illness and some deaths as we go through this flu cycle. in a normal seasonal flu cycle we would anticipate across the united states 35,000 deaths. of course this is not a seasonal flu, but i think it would not be unexpected that there would be some more severe illness and some deaths as we proceed forward. >> secretary
vilsack do you have any evidence of farmers being impacted? >> the last two days the pork prices have been down. the last two days soybean prices have been down. yesterday corn prices went down. so, virtually anybody who is in the pork business, in the corn business or the soybean business has had potentially had an impact or an effect and if this continues, obviously, you have significant potential, which is why it's important to get this right. this is not a food borne illness, virus. it is not correct to refer to it as swine flu because there's really, this is not what this is about. it is about a human-to-human transmission which is why the department of homeland security is taking litigation steps to minimize those contacts. and it is important to convey the message that consuming pork or pork products will not cause and cannot cause the illnesses that we're dealing with. so it's a very important message to send in terms of the economics of this and i think ambassador kirk is right about this. we're concerned about people's safety but also concerned about the impact on the economy of these farm families.
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