http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-27256466 The above link takes one to a story about a pig virus which when first discovered four decades ago was milder, but which mutates fairly rapidly and now is spreading in highly virulent form. The virus doesn't infect humans at this time. However, humans and pigs are similar enough that a number of viruses have jumped from pigs to humans in the past. Therefore, we should be doing research to learn how to protect humans if the virus does mutate in a way that causes it to infect humans. If we have vaccines and treatment drugs waiting to be put into production each time a disease jumps from animals to humans, we will be much better off over future centuries. We could be spending a quarter billion 2014 American dollars per year for research on each animal virus which might mutate in a way that would lead to it infecting humans. I don't know exactly how many viruses that would include. However, even if there are about a thousand animal viruses we need to be doing this research on, the two or three hundred billion dollars per year would be small compared with the 60 trillion dollars per year Gross World Product. In addition, the research itself would immediately produce economic growth. There would be increased demand for laboratory equipment and supplies. In addition, the researchers would spend their salaries on things that businesses produced, expanding the economy that way. In addition, the spin-offs over the years from the increasing knowledge would produce further economic growth.
"Subway bans pork to comply with Islamic law in the UK" Not only are Muslims trying to save infidel's miserable little souls, but they're trying to protect their health as well.
Or we could spend the money encouraging ag development so that all our pork supplies don't originate from the same sources. It also does not make sense that you seem to want to let pigs die off but protect humans from viruses to which they won't be exposed when the pigs die off. Wouldn't it be simpler to stop the virus in the swine instead of trying to come up with some cure to a non-existing future virus mutation to which humans have yet to be exposed?
