Swine flu: Israel row over non-kosher virus name
Israel will continue to use the name Swine Flu for the deadly virus sweeping the world despite religious calls for it to be rebranded Mexican Flu. Deputy health minister Yakov Litzman, a member of an ultra-religious party, said "swine flu " should not be used as it contains the name of the animal banned by Judaism. Instead he said the authorities should call the virus sweeping the globe "Mexican flu." That, however, did not sit well with either Mexico's ambassador to Israel nor the Jewish state's envoy to Mexico. Mexico's ambassador Frederico Salas and the Israeli envoy to Mexico Yosef Livne both lodged official complaints at the foreign ministry on Tuesday protesting at the new term. "The ambassador (Salas) said he was offended when the deputy health minister's called it the Mexican flu," a foreign ministry official said. "Israel has no intention of giving the flu any new names. " the official said. Eating pork is prohibited by Judaism, the religion practised by the majority of Israelis. Islam, adhered to by most of Israel's Arab minority, likewise bans consumption of pork. Israel confirmed that two nationals who recently returned from Mexico had contracted swine flu in the first such cases in the Middle East. US officials also said they were reviewing whether to change the name of the outbreak, complaining that a slew of countries were misguidedly banning pork exports from North America. "This is not a food-borne crisis. It's important to not refer to swine flu. It's important to convey the message that consuming pork will not cause this illness," Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack told reporters. The World Organisation for Animal Health said on Monday that the name swine flu is a misnomer as the deadly virus has origins among birds and humans as well as pigs. --- StripMime Report -- processed MIME parts --- multipart/alternative text/plain (text body -- kept) text/html --- _______________________________________________ Post Messages to: [email protected] Subscription Maintenance: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profox OT-free version of this list: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profoxtech Searchable Archive: http://leafe.com/archives/search/profox This message: http://leafe.com/archives/byMID/profox/[email protected] ** All postings, unless explicitly stated otherwise, are the opinions of the author, and do not constitute legal or medical advice. This statement is added to the messages for those lawyers who are too stupid to see the obvious.
