Standing near the grill outside Golick’s Meat Market, owner Mike Richards said his customers continue to pig out on his pork chop sandwiches.

“Nobody ever questions me about the swine flu,” he said Wednesday. “I think people have been pretty adamant about it, like ‘read my lips, you can’t get swine flu from it.’ ”

The H1N1, commonly called swine flu, has suddenly given pigs a bad name and farmers like Tom Dittmer fits as hog prices plummet. Dittmer sends 75,000 hogs a year to market from his farm near Eldridge, Iowa. He and other hog farmers have watched the price drop more than $10 per hundredweight since the flu outbreak was announced in Mexico at the end of last month.

The May futures price for hogs closed at $58.70 per hundredweight Wednesday. Hog prices were at more than $70 per hundredweight for most of April.

“You’ve never had such a helpless feeling in the last two weeks,” Dittmer said. “The product is safe. Eating pork has nothing to do with H1N1 virus.”

That hasn’t stopped China from banning hogs and pork from the United States and Egypt from slaughtering its pig population. The World Health Organization and U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack each released strong statements that the flu virus can’t be passed to humans from eating pork.

Iowa Agriculture Secretary Bill Northey also weighed in on the issue.

“Iowa pork, and all pork for that matter, is safe, and China and the other countries that are banning pork imports are not acting based on science,” he said Wednesday. “It is unfortunate that these unjustified actions are being felt most dramatically by the farmers who raise pork.”

The message seems to be getting through to Quad-Citians. Jimmy Overton Jr. of Jim’s Rib Haven in Rock Island said he hasn’t heard anyone express concern about it, and most of the food he serves is pork.

“Tuesday and Wednesdays have slowed up a little bit because of the economy, but it comes back on the weekends,” he said. “I haven’t heard one customer say one word about it, even in general conversation.”

Dennis Cox, vice president for restaurants with Heart of America, with local restaurants like the Iowa Machine Shed in Davenport and Johnny’s Italian Steakhouse in Moline, says some people have asked about food safety and the virus, but workers are quick to educate and explain the virus can’t be passed from pig to person.

As the weather has warmed, people are getting out their grills, so business in pork chops and bratwurst has been pretty good for meat markets like Golick’s in Davenport and Weber Meats in Bettendorf. Weber co-owner Scott Weber said he’s heard a few jokes but no serious concern. He feels sorry for hog farmers.

“It is a bad deal for the pork producers with what they named it,” he said. “They stopped calling it ‘swine flu,’ but it is too late.”

Dittmer has tried hard to educate people, but he figures the misnamed virus has done its damage to his livelihood. He thinks hog prices have bottomed out. On Wednesday, hog prices closed up about $1 per hundredweight from where they opened.

“We’ll work through this,” he said. “We have too good a product to have this misconception.”