Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, October 19, 1995                   TAG: 9510190044
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: C-1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: RAY REED
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

IN VIETNAM, IT'S PIGS TO THE SLAUGHTER

F.L., Roanoke

A: They go to market.

It's kind of brutal, really, but potbellied pigs that don't come to the United States are treated much like, well, animals on a small farm in the United States.

Three people who've been to Vietnam - a U.S. Marine, an American tourist and a Blacksburg restaurateur who lived there - agreed on this: Vietnamese people regard their pigs as food.

Potbellied pigs are smaller than ours, and Americans think they're toys, says Nhon Ngo, who owns the Vietnam Tea House in Blacksburg. But over there, it's different.

Here's the scenario: A man on a bicycle rides through a village ringing a bell and asking if anyone has a piglet to sell. About $2 changes hands, and a pig goes to a new home where it's raised in a pen with two to four others.

They eat chopped fodder from banana trees that have yielded their fruit. Sweet-potato vines may be included in their diet.

Never do the pigs eat grain, and never do they see the inside of a house.

When the pig is big enough, about 100 to 150 pounds, it's either eaten or sold to a butcher in Hanoi for about $30. At 2 a.m., a hog killing occurs in the city, and by 6 a.m., the meat's on sale at a streetside stand. It's all sold by 2 p.m., and the cycle is repeated, with no bother from American-style sanitation laws.

If a villager can sell five or six mature pigs a year, he's earned more than half his annual income of $200.

Ken Schoff, a Roanoker who had a 1970 tour in Vietnam, recalls children herding pigs as they foraged near the villages. He found the pork tough; banana trees, it seems, are about as fattening as celery.

Flu-shot prices

Q: I got a flu shot recently, and the clerk charged $24 to Medicare. I saw another patient pay with a $20 bill and receive change, so I had a friend call and inquire about the price for a flu shot. She was quoted $17. Why the difference?

A.W., Roanoke

A: The price that's charged up front to Medicare, which the patient sees, is not the amount actually paid.

A spokeswoman at your clinic explained that flu shots cost $17 for the vaccine.

Medicare allows the clinic to list a $7 charge for administering the shot, so the bill to Medicare is $24. But that's just paperwork.

At your clinic, the shot recipient pays nothing out of pocket this year for Medicare. The clinic accepts Medicare's standard reimbursement, and that amount is $6.65 this year, the spokeswoman says.

Patients with commercial insurance are charged $17 at your clinic.

A lower price on flu shots - $10 - is available at the Roanoke city Health Department on Fridays from 8:30 to 11:30 a.m. at 515 Eighth St. S.W. No appointment is necessary.

Wal-Mart has canceled plans for the Health Department to give flu shots at its U.S. 220 location next Monday through Wednesday, says Sandy McBride of the Health Department.

Got a question about something that might affect other people, too? Something you've come across and wondered about? Give us a call at 981-3118. Maybe we can find the answer.