"Swine Flu" Causes Public Relations Crisis for Pork Industry

The Swine Flu has given pork a bad wrap and consequently hurt the U.S. pork industry. The United States pork industry produces over $21 billion in personal income while adding $34.5 billion to the U.S. gross national product.

The National Producers Council noted that the pork industry supplies nearly 35,000 direct full-time jobs which producers 500,000 additional jobs.

Clearly, the pork industry not only produces a LOT of pork, it also creates a substantial amount of jobs. So why isn't the industry backing themselves up enough when they are accused for being the cause for the swine flu? The truth, (which most people are unaware of right now) is that the U.S. Center for Disease Control has reported that pork products are safe to consume. To get straight to the point, consuming pork products is not going to give you the swine flu! The CDC has reported the following on its official website:

"Swine influenza viruses are not transmitted by food. You cannot get swine influenza from eating pork or pork products. Eating properly handled and cooked pork and pork products is safe."

So why doesn't anyone know this? Moreover, why hasn't this CDC report been vigorously publicized in the news, radio, etc ? The National Pig Association (NPA) has refused to release a public statement announcing that pork products are safe. The general manager of NPA, Barney Kay, believes that the NPA does not feel that it is necessarily to make the announcement saying, "Releasing a statement will only make the story run longer."

We are constantly getting updates on the latest death count and case locations but are not accurately informed of the origin of the flu. Consequently, the pork industry is getting hit hard with the crisis. The industry needs to respond more aggressively, by investing in public relations to assist in crisis management to control long-term losses (both monetary and reputation-wise).

Here are some PR crisis management tactics the pork industry should consider:
- The Government must be openly (and constantly) communicating the fact that pork products are safe to eat and that they are monitoring the situation around the clock. This will become a new focal point and bury some of the false reports and speculation.
- Create advertisements, pamphlets, fact sheets, press releases, and other documents by qualified individuals (doctors, experts, the Government) communicating to the public that pork products are safe to consume
- Have opinion leaders, media outlets, politicians, supermarkets, and celebrities further spread the message that pork products are safe and eating them will not cause swine flu.
- Use Public Service Announcements, commercials, etc to release the facts about pork and the swine flu.

According to PR Week:
20% of articles mentioned the word ‘pandemic’
13% of articles mentioned the word ‘deadly’
3% of articles mentioned the word ‘panic’
53% of articles were negative in tone
0.02% of articles were positive in tone

One positive step in the right direction has been renaming the swine flu the H1N1 Influenza as to cut the connection between the pandemic and the pork industry. Until they find out the cause for H1N1 Influenza I will be stocking up on hand sanitizer and staying away from anyone with cold or flu like symptoms.