Cate Dewey, a professor of swine health management and epidemiology at the Ontario Veterinary College, chair of the department of population medicine at the University of Guelph and a member of the Centre for Public Health and Zoonoses, writes that given the recent hysteria about pork and pigs, it amazes me that Canadians eat at all.

The recent H1N1 influenza epidemic has raised many questions about how animal viruses move to human populations. One potential route is through veterinarians, who, according to a new report by University of Iowa College of Public Health researchers, are at markedly increased risk of infection with zoonotic pathogens -- the viruses and bacteria that can infect both animals and humans.

The frozen pot pies that sickened an estimated 15,000 people with salmonella in 2007 left federal inspectors mystified. At first they suspected the turkey. Then they considered the peas, carrots and potatoes.

Bird flu may not have become the threat to humans that some predicted because our noses are too cold for the virus to thrive, say UK researchers. Tests in a laboratory recreation of the environment in the nose found that at 32 degrees Celsius, avian flu viruses lose function and cannot spread.