rssU.N. to Investigate Industrial Pig Farm in Mexico as Possible Swine Flu Source
Wednesday, April 29, 2009 at 11:20 am
- 6 Comments
United Nations food inspectors are going to Mexico to investigate reports that industrial pig farms were the source of the swine flu outbreak, the BBC reports.
As I wrote yesterday, based on some excellent reporting in Grist and elsewhere, local residents in La Gloria, Mexico, where the swine flu outbreak may have originated, suspect that the source is the Granjas Carroll industrial pig farm. The facility is half-owned by U.S.-based Smithfield Foods, the world’s largest pork processor.
Although some 60 percent of the town was sick with some sort of flu recently, it’s not clear that it was swine flu and Smithfield denies that any of its hundreds of thousands of pigs were infected. Smithfield subsidiaries “routinely administer influenza virus vaccination to their swine herds and conduct monthly tests for the presence of swine influenza,” the company said in a statement.
However, the current swine flu outbreak appears to involve a new strain of H1N1 influenza, so vaccinations against earlier forms of the virus may not work against this one.
The Mexican pig industry, meanwhile, denies all responsibility.
“We deny completely that the influenza virus affecting Mexico originated in pigs, because it has been scientifically demonstrated that this is not possible,” said a statement issued by the National Organization of Pig Production and Producers and its president, Mario Humberto Quintanilla González.
But the industry’s insistence that the disease cannot be transmitted from pigs to people contradicts almost everything the Mexican government has been saying about it, reports David Kirby for The Huffington Post. Mexico’s Health Minister, Jose Angel Cordova, has said the virus, “mutated from pigs, and then at some point was transmitted to humans.”
Fortunately, U.N. health inspectors don’t seem to be taking anyone’s word for it and will conduct their own investigation.
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6 Comments
Comment posted April 29, 2009 @ 10:45 am
Dear CNN,
Unfortunately, i am seeing the same things that led us into war. CNN needs to start investigating and stop following the news. Here it is on various blogs and on the UK Times I am hearing that the UN is investigating issues of the swine flu down in Mexico. And no the angle is not that pigs have this flu but the flu is created as a result pig waste being left untreated and placed into lagoons that are the perfect place such a flu to grow . We all know that many rural areas of Mexico there is not the same level of environmentalism as there is in the states. As a result what does that translate to. It means that Mexican pig farm companies and American pig farm companies can set up shop in Mexico in these rural areas and not following common decent sanitary practices. I imagine these pig farm companies are using pratices they could not get away with in many areas United States. CNN please look into these leads and stop only focusing on what level the WHO has its threat level at. This is serious not something you can sell commercial time for. STOP FOLLOWING THE NEWS AND MAKE THE NEWS. GEESH
ERIC P
SAN JOSE, CA
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Comment posted May 1, 2009 @ 11:12 am
part of the same old sell out to their corporate paymasters that this governemnt is famous for. let these shit companies go to the low cost centers of the world for labor and products and every one will live happy ever after.
and kick all the H-1B visa holders at TARP WELFARE companies to the curb as well.
Comment posted May 1, 2009 @ 6:12 pm
part of the same old sell out to their corporate paymasters that this governemnt is famous for. let these shit companies go to the low cost centers of the world for labor and products and every one will live happy ever after.
and kick all the H-1B visa holders at TARP WELFARE companies to the curb as well.
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