Four-year-old could hold key in search for source of swine flu outbreak

[Wind Dancer]

From the Guardian/UK

Case confirmed in village in south-eastern Mexico where 60% of residents fell ill

~ snip ~

The boy's case earlier this month came amid an outbreak of respiratory illness in the area in which around 400 people requested medical help. The boy was treated in hospital and survived. But two babies from the same village died during the outbreak. Sufferers complained of symptoms including fever, severe cough, and large amounts of phlegm.

~ snip ~

A La Gloria resident who spoke to the Guardian on condition of anonymity yesterday described how illness swept through the village. "Some people started getting ill in February and an eight-month-old baby died," she said. "After that another baby died on 21 March. Suddenly most of the village got ill. It was weekend and the tiny clinic here was closed. The state health authorities then did send doctors and nurses to look after us, and give us medication. About 60% of the village were ill and we asked them what it was and they said it was a severe and atypical cold. We talked about influenza and they said that was impossible, that influenza had been eradicated from Mexico."

Smithfield, which is led by pork baron Joseph W Luter III, has previously been fined for environmental damage in the US. In October 2000 the supreme court upheld a $12.6m (£8.6m) fine levied by the US environmental protection agency which found that the company had violated its pollution permits in the Pagan River in Virginia which runs towards Chesapeake Bay. The company faced accusations that faecal and other bodily waste from slaughtered pigs had been dumped directly into the river since the 1970s .

The outbreak of respiratory illness in the area of the Granjas Carroll plant was first detected at the beginning of this month by Veratect, a company based in Washington state which monitors the spread of disease and pandemics around the world for corporate clients.

~ more ~

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/apr/27/swine-flu-search-outbreak-source

Very interesting!!!

[skooooo]

1. Republicans will advocate torture..

...to get the truth out of the little brown toddler!

[hedgehog]

2. Personally, I blame Joseph W. Luter III

http://www.forbes.com/lists/2006/12/UQDU.html

[Schema Thing]

3. I wonder who Joseph W Luter gives to, politically?

[stillcool]

5. 77% Republicans--23% Democrats

Smithfield Foods
From SourceWatch
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Smithfield Foods, based in Smithfield, Virginia, USA, is the world's largest pork producer and growing. It sells in about 40 countries and has made major inroads into France and Poland. Some of its brands are Packerland, John Morrell, Lykes, Patrick Cudahy, and Smithfield Premium. In 2006, it had sales of almost $11.9 billion and profits of $167 million. <1>


Smithfield Foods gave $103,350 to federal candidates in the 2006 election through its political action committee - 23% to Democrats and 77% to Republicans. <2>

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Smithfield_Foods

They've got their own PAC

Official PAC Name:
SMITHFIELD FOODS INC POLITICAL ACTION COMMITTEE (HAMPAC)
Location: WASHINGTON, DC 20036
Industry: Food Processing & Sales; Meat processing & products
Treasurer: Treacy, Dennis H.
FEC Committee ID: C00359075
(Look up actual documents filed at the FEC)

*Based on data released by the FEC on April 28, 2009 except for independent expenditure and communication cost, contributions to federal candidates, and contributions from individual donor data, which were released by the FEC on March 02, 2009.

..and they gave more to Democrats in 2008...32% I think it said.

[Schema Thing]

7. thanks

[MorningGlow]

4. Those poor Mexicans...

Having to deal with the shitty companies who leave the U.S. in order to pollute at will. Such a beautiful country, too...

[Wind Dancer]

8. Very tragic indeed!

We will continue to see more problems unless changes are made by these "massive profits at any cost" corporations.


"Researchers interviewed by Science worried that one of these hybrids might become a human flu (both the 1957 and 1968 pandemics are believed to have originated from the mixing of bird and human viruses inside pigs), and urged the creation of an official surveillance system for swine flu: an admonition, of course, that went unheeded in a Washington prepared to throw away billions on bioterrorism fantasies."

~ snip ~

In 1965, for instance, there were 53m US hogs on more than 1m farms; today, 65m hogs are concentrated in 65,000 facilities. This has been a transition from old-fashioned pig pens to vast excremental hells, containing tens of thousands of animals with weakened immune systems suffocating in heat and manure while exchanging pathogens at blinding velocity with their fellow inmates.

Last year a commission convened by the Pew Research Center issued a report on "industrial farm animal production" that underscored the acute danger that "the continual cycling of viruses … in large herds or flocks increase opportunities for the generation of novel virus through mutation or recombinant events that could result in more efficient human to human transmission." The commission also warned that promiscuous antibiotic use in hog factories (cheaper than humane environments) was sponsoring the rise of resistant staph infections, while sewage spills were producing outbreaks of E coli and pfiesteria (the protozoan that has killed 1bn fish in Carolina estuaries and made ill dozens of fishermen).

Any amelioration of this new pathogen ecology would have to confront the monstrous power of livestock conglomerates such as Smithfield Farms (pork and beef) and Tyson (chickens). The commission reported systemic obstruction of their investigation by corporations, including blatant threats to withhold funding from cooperative researchers .

~ more ~

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/apr/27/swine-flu-mexico-health

[louis-t]

6. I've had a strong feeling that this outbreak was

due to contaminated water.