Lessons learned? I think not

The current flu scare seems to be over, thankfully. So, what have learned from it? Nothing new, very unfortunately.

The poultry industry has seen all this before, particularly in 2005 and 2006, and nothing has changed three years later: the press panicked, the public panicked and stopped eating a food product, countries stopped importing this food product; all of this to the detriment of one agribusiness sector.

2006 was a very bad year for the poultry exporting countries, particularly the US and Brazil. Likewise, 2009 is looking to be a very bad year for pork exporting countries, particularly the US, Mexico and Canada. (It was already forecast to be a tough year for pork exports.)

Back in 2005/2006 the poultry industry complained about how horrible the press coverage was, how they got it all wrong, and therefore scared their audiences out of eating chicken. The alarmist press coverage these last two weeks has already been a much discussed issue. Nothing’s changed.

There were also many complaints in 2005/2006 about how the bans imposed by importing countries were done primarily for political reasons rather than for food safety reasons. It was an easy excuse to close borders to international competitors. We saw that happen almost immediately this time.

Why does this matter? Because we may hear the press crying “swine flu” again this fall with the start of the new flu season. There is still much argument amongst the experts as to whether or not this H1N1 strain will be an issue during the next flu season. Based on my understanding of “flu history,” this is a possibility: the 1917/1918 flu virus impacted three different flu seasons.

If, and it’s a big if, H1N1 becomes an issue during the next flu season, I don’t expect any of the lessons learned from the past (or present) to mean anything: the press will again be alarmist, people will stop eating the food unfairly blamed for the problem, and importing countries will again use this as an excuse to halt imports.

This may be a cynical view of things, but based on the fact that we apparently haven’t learned anything from the past, I don’t expect any of those lessons to be heeded in the future.