[AlternativeAnswers] Fwd: [The_Brotherhood_of_Pagans] Swine-flu outbreak could be linked to Smithfield factory farms
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Leila <hineni@mts.net>
Date: Wed, 29 Apr 2009 16:27:12 -0500
Subject: [The_Brotherhood_
linked to Smithfield factory farms
To:
Swine-flu outbreak could be linked to Smithfield factory farms
a.. One flu east, one flu westThe outbreak of a new flu strain-a
nasty mash-up of swine, avian, and human viruses-has infected 1,000
people in Mexico and the U.S., killing 68. The World Health
Organization warned Saturday that the outbreak could reach global
pandemic levels.
Is Smithfield Foods, the world's largest pork packer and hog producer,
linked to the outbreak? Smithfield operates massive hog-raising
operations Perote, Mexico, in the state of Vera Cruz, where the
outbreak originated. The operations, grouped under a Smithfield
subsidiary called Granjas Carroll, raise 950,000 hogs per year,
according to the company Web site.
On Friday, the U.S. disease-tracking blog Biosurveillance published a
timeline of the outbreak containing this nugget, dated April 6 (major
tip of the hat to Paula Hay, who alerted me to the Smithfield link on
the Comfood listserv and has written about it on her blog, Peak Oil
Entrepreneur)
Residents [of Perote] believed the outbreak had been caused by
contamination from pig breeding farms located in the area. They
believed that the farms, operated by Granjas Carroll, polluted the
atmosphere and local water bodies, which in turn led to the disease
outbreak. According to residents, the company denied responsibility
for the outbreak and attributed the cases to "flu." However, a
municipal health official stated that preliminary investigations
indicated that the disease vector was a type of fly that reproduces in
pig waste and that the outbreak was linked to the pig farms. It was
unclear whether health officials had identified a suspected pathogen
responsible for this outbreak.
From what I can tell, the possible link to Smithfield has not been
reported in the U.S. press. Searches of Google News and the websites
of the New York Times, Washington Post, and Wall Street Journal all
came up empty. The link is being made in the Mexican media, however.
"Granjas Carroll, causa de epidemia en La Gloria," declared a headline
in the Vera Cruz-based paper La Marcha. No need to translate that,
except to point out that La Gloria is the village where the outbreak
seems to have started. Judging from the article, Mexican authorities
treat hog CAFOs with just as much if not more indulgence than their
peers north of the border, to the detriment of surrounding communities
and the general public health. Get this:
De acuerdo con uno de los habitantes de la comunidad, Eli Ferrer
Cortés, los desechos fecales y orgánicos que produce Granjas Carroll
no son tratados adecuadamente, lo que genera contaminación del agua y
del viento en la region.
My rough translation: According to one community resident, the organic
and fecal waste produced by Granjas Carrol isn't adequately treated,
creating water and air pollution in the region. I witnessed-and
smelled-the same thing in Hardin County, Iowa, a couple of years ago,
another area marked by intensive industrial hog production. The
article goes on to say that area residents have long complained of
"fetid odors" in the air and water, and swarms of flies hovering
around waste lagoons. Like their counterparts who live in CAFO-heavy
U.S. areas, they also complain of respiratory ailments. Now, with 30
percent of the area's residents now infected with the virulent flu
bug, people are demanding that state and federal authorities inspect
hog operations there. So far, reports La Marcha, the response has
been: nada.
The Mexico City daily La Jornada has also made the link. According to
the newspaper, the Mexican health agency IMSS has acknowledged that
the orginal carrier for the flu could be the "clouds of flies" that
multiply in the Smithfield subsidiary's manure lagoons.
I'll be in touch with contacts in Mexico as this story develops -and
I'll be curious to see whether the U.S. media explores the link with
Smithfield's Mexico operation.
Note: In the original version of this post, I had called production at
Granjas Carroll "nearly equal to Smithfield's total U.S. production."
I had been confusing total production at Granjas Carroll-950,
produced in fiscal 2008-with the number of sows, or breeding pigs,
kept by Smithfield in the United States. According to my
source-"Concentrati
Heffernan-Smithfiel
much larger-thus Smithfield's total U.S. hog production is much larger
than Granjas Carroll's. I regret the error.
Grist food editor Tom Philpott farms and cooks at Maverick Farms, a
sustainable-
Mountains of North Carolina.
http://www.grist.
--
Blessings of the Netjer
Shaman Odin
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