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Source of Swine Flu May Be U.S. Hog Production Facility in Mexico
A publication called Grist is reporting that the swine flu outbreak may have been triggered by poor hygienic practices at the Perote, Vera Cruz, Mexico hog farming facilities of Smithfield Farms. Smithfield Farms is the “world’s largest hog producer and pork packager”:
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.
5 Responses to “Source of Swine Flu May Be U.S. Hog Production Facility in Mexico”
It's possible. But I'm not sure if flies are the vector here. The swine flu is actually a hybrid of human, bird and swine flu, so I'm not sure how it would get passed via flies from hog waste to humans.
Elrod,
You are missing the point.
The outbreak of swine flu is a bad thing, so it is the fault of the U.S.
Didn’t you get the memo?
Hehe, jwest- particularly the evil US factory farming corporations.
I am pretty sure there's never been a flu virus confirmed to be spread by insect vector (that's not the way this family of viruses operates) and it's not shed in active form in the feces, so the premise of that is based on complete nonsense.
And actually, theoretically factory farming should be epidemiologically better than small family farms in highly populated areas. If large livestock groups could be raised remotely from people, we'd have far less risk of genetic crossover between porcine and avian viruses with human ones, which is what happens with these highly virulent and novel flu viruses.
This is something I know a bit about, having attended a seminar by a CDC vet who explained (frighteningly, I might add) that global demographic shifts toward the keeping of livestock in highly populated areas is virtually guaranteeing that we'll have one of these pandemics in the near future.
I am pretty sure there's never been a flu virus confirmed to be spread by insect vector (that's not the way this family of viruses operates) and it's not shed in active form in the feces, so the premise of that is based on complete nonsense.
CStanley one.
This is something I know a bit about, having attended a seminar by a CDC vet who explained (frighteningly, I might add) that global demographic shifts toward the keeping of livestock in highly populated areas is virtually guaranteeing that we'll have one of these pandemics in the near future.
Could you please reconcile these two different CStanleys for me?
Kathy ??
Where's the contradiction in stating some information that I learned at a conference, and in stating some other information that I'm pretty sure is accurate while also conveying that I'm not expert enough on the subject to state it as unequivocal fact? The second statement you quoted was the focus of the seminar I attended, and I stand by the accuracy of it. The first is just my general accumulated knowledge of the various virus families. I've had more education on this than the average Joe (virology and epidemiology courses at the graduate level) but less than a virologist or epidemiologist would, so I'm not trying to assert a level of expertise that's 'above my pay grade'.