Reply #61: that is totally false

[northernlights]

Virus (and bacteria) dna can "mix and match" in a process called "re-assortment" once they are reproducing inside somebody.

The swine flu reservoir is normally swine, and people who get swine flu normally catch it from infected pigs. But if a person infected with a human flu strain gets swine flu, the 2 can recombine in a form that passes human-to-human. Same thing with avian flu. Plus pigs can catch avian flu from birds, and in the same way, end up with a recombined swine/avian flu that passes pig-to-pig.

DNA recombination is what enables pandemics -- via recombination, an entirely new strain emerges against which the population has no immunity.

Furthermore, there have been recombined human/swine/avian strains before. What makes this one unsual is there are something like 4 different swine strains involved, from 2 different continents. Making a kind of a multinational flu.