[jb6]

From what I understand, swine have an internal system extremely similar to humans, to include digestion. I love how egos often block research. Also, if the disease is spread in cow's milk, does an infected human female spread it the same way?

[redgolum]

From what I understand, swine have an internal system extremely similar to humans,

Yep. Most of the avian flu strains jump to people via hogs.

Ten years ago my father's herd was wiped out by the "mystery disease", something that makes AIDS look like the flu. The virus (paraviro is the one if I remember right) jumped to hogs from birds. Our herd got it from a sick goose (long story).

We worked with a couple of PhDs on it, and one told me if this stuff ever jumped to people.. well what he said scared the daylights out of me. It never did, and you can get a vaccine for it now (thanks in part to may Dad shipping hogs to a couple of vet schools).