Adding insult to injury, the outbreak of HlNl Influenza A virus has left the U.S. pork industry reeling from yet another exaggerated media frenzy. The good news about the bad news is that the staffs at the National Pork
Producers Council (NPPC) and the National Pork Board reacted quickly and effectively the minute news of swine-tagged flu symptoms hit the airwaves, newspaper and website headlines around the globe. While we are being grateful, we
would do well to glance over our shoulders and try to imagine another, even more serious scenario — one in
which we were facing the discovery of a foreign animal disease, such as foot-and-mouth disease (FMD), within
our borders rather than dealing with a novel influenza virus. In that context, perhaps the past few weeks provided a dress rehearsal for something much, much bigger.