clipped from: www.boingboing.net Why It's Called "Swine Flu"
By now, you've probably heard about the fact that this particular strain is basically a genetic tossed salad of pig, bird and human flu virus. So why is the pig part getting all the "glory"? According to Andrew Pekosz, over at the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health, it's because the two genes most important to determining whether humans are immune and what level of protection they have (that'd be the "H" and the "N" in H1N1, by the way) happen to be ones that came from porcine flu strains. We call this chimera "Swine Flu" because that's where it got the genes that really matter most to our health.
On a related note, the AP is reporting that an Israeli Deputy Health Minister is vehemently opposed to the name, because he finds the pig reference religiously offensive. Yeah,I dunno, either.