Why isn't it called the Smithfield Flu?

[newmac]

Run time: 07:09 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oQzYjUtRtH8   Posted on YouTube: April 30, 2009 By YouTube Member: Views on YouTube: 0   Posted on DU: April 30, 2009 By DU Member: newmac Views on DU: 1096

 
While right wingers are blaming this flu on Mexican immigrants; it turns out it is the American owned Smithfield Pork plant in Mexico; that is polluting the local area with its diseased filth. All unregulated; (thats why they are in Mexico). Do we have another scourge that can be pinned on past prezgeorge and his wingnuts?

[Phred42]

1. ...because it should be called the NAFTA Flu

[midnight]

2. Good find. The devil is truely in the details.

[MADem]

3. Well, it comes from pigs, and transmits to humans, where it mutates.

If there's a cow in there anywhere, you could call it MAN COW PIG flu, like South Park, I suppose.

You can call it Ray or Jay if you'd like. It's an unfortunate thing, is what it is.

[florida08]

4. Imagine that

http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P2-724749.html

Smithfield Foods Liable For Dumping Hog Waste; Federal Judge Sides With EPA in Va. Case

A federal judge has found Smithfield Foods Inc. liable for dumping illegal levels of hog waste into a Chesapeake Bay tributary for five years in the 1990s, exposing the giant pork producer to up to $133 million in fines in one of the largest cases brought under the federal Clean Water Act.

In a case that has come to symbolize Virginia Gov. George Allen's permissive environmental policies, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency sued Smithfield in December, arguing that the state was "not doing the job" despite a decade of violations by the company. In turn, Allen (R) has attacked the EPA for its criticism of state policies toward corporate polluters.

[JDPriestly]

5. Mexico government disagrees, says genetic material from Europe and Asia not U.S.

Mexico's top government epidemiologist said Wednesday that it is "highly improbable" that a farm in the Mexican state of Veracruz operated by Smithfield Foods Inc. is responsible for the nation's swine-flu outbreak.

Miguel Ángel Lezana, the government's chief epidemiologist, said in an interview that pigs at the farm are from North America, while the genetic material in the virus is from Europe and Asia.

Government health workers plan to re-test the pigs for any sign of swine flu, he said.

Veracruz is home to the illness's earliest known victim so far, though Mr. Lezana on Wednesday said a Bangladeshi street vendor in Mexico City was among the first victims. Locals have been pointing fingers at the pork-processing giant in the nearby village of Perote, run by Smithfield and the Mexican company Agroindustrias Unidas de Mexico S.A, as the source of the flu.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124105320874371313.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

Of course, this is the Wall Street Journal, but then it shows that the origin is not certain quite yet.

[freemarketer6]

6. Real good question. nft

dd

[florida08]

7. interesting

April 27 2009, Rome - The FAO-OIE Crisis Management Centre – Animal Health is mobilizing a team of experts to assist government efforts to protect the pig sector from the novel H1N1 virus by confirming there is no direct link to pigs, increasing animal disease surveillance and maintaining response readiness should the new virus become introduced into the pig population.

http://www.fao.org/news/story/en/item/13002/icode/

Not swine flu?

Smithfield, the world's biggest hog producer and owner of the pig plant in Mexico near the source of this virus, says its Mexican operations are "submitting samples from their swine herds to confirm the absence of North American influenza".

http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/shortsharpscience/2009/04/why-the-pork-industry-hates-th.html

Get that? North American flu. Not swine flu. Such is the power of the pork industry that even the top US health officials at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are coming under painfully visible pressure not to call it swine flu.