Etheridge disputes police decision on risk of pig poop

WASHINGTON -- People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals wanted to take pigs to Capitol Hill to protest how they are treated in corporate hog farms.

PETA also wanted to fill 3,500 buckets with pig urine and waste and use fans to send the scent wafting across Capitol Hill.

The U.S. Capitol Police said no.

Pigs, the police said, have potentially unhealthy effluent and could spread swine flu. They cited concerns by the local health department.

"I trust you can understand," said the police agency's letter to PETA.

But that reasoning raised a minor political stink with a congressman from North Carolina, the nation's No.2 pork-producing state.

Unsheathing his pen, Democratic U.S. Rep. Bob Etheridge - a part-time farmer who raised piglets as a child - wrote the Capitol Police a stern missive last week.

"I was extremely disturbed," he began.

Pig farmers already suffer because of erroneous concerns that eating pork spreads swine flu, he wrote. (The industry prefers the scientific name for the virus, H1N1.)

"Coming in contact with pigs is not a significant risk factor for contracting the novel H1N1 flu," Etheridge wrote. "And it is not possible to get it by eating pork or pork products."

PETA activists said the Capitol Police denial proves the dangers of swine waste and corporate pig farms. Etheridge disagrees.

"Pork products are not only very safe," he wrote, "but also very tasty."