Got swine flu? Don't blame vegetarians, or the pigs
U.S. News and World, April 29 2009
UTMB’s Joan Nichols is quoted in this article about swine flu. “Scientists are still struggling to determine how the virus was first passed from pigs to people. Pigs have receptors in their respiratory tracts that make them susceptible to strains of bird and human flu, which can then mutate to create a new virus, as they apparently have in this case,” she said Nichols is an infectious-disease expert and associate director of the Galveston National Laboratory at UTMB. “We consider them the mixing pot. ... They're a great source to generate something new. People who work with the pigs can also catch it,”