Here is a religiously provocative question, as the swine flu panic is spreading around the world:
Pork products are neither halal according to the Qur'an nor kosher according to Torah and maybe God had imposed a heavenly method of disease control to the Muslims and the Jews in this way. Dunno, the Christians could have lost it in translation...
I know that swine flu viruses in the pork would die when they're cooked, but it doesn't change the fact that a pig, as the original "intermediate host" for influenza, can be a novel virus factory in this case. It could be -at least- one of the reasons of the culinary ban in two Abrahamic religions.
Some worrying facts from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention made me think in this way:
* Swine flu viruses typically cause illness in pigs, not humans. Most cases occur when people come into contact with infected pigs or contaminated objects moving between people and pigs.
* Pigs can catch human and avian or bird flu. When flu viruses from different species infect pigs, they can mix inside the pig and new, mixed viruses can emerge.
* Pigs can pass mutated viruses back to humans, and these can be passed from human to human.
