The first outbreaks of the H1N1 virus, or "swine flu," took place in a small town in the state of Veracruz. Carroll Farms, the massive industrial farm animal production facilities co-owned by Smithfield Foods and AHMSA of Mexico is located near La Gloria, in the municipality of Perote. A local boy, Edgar Hernandez, gained the dubious distinction of becoming the first confirmed case. After weeks of denying any connection between the farm and the illness, the state governor finally called for an independent investigation into possible linkages. That investigation has not been made public or even carried out so far as is known.
The governor's announcement followed a long line of denials regarding the role of the hog farm-or hog farms in general-in the outbreak of the A/H1N1 virus in Mexico. Unusual respiratory diseases began showing up in communities surrounding the industrial feedlot in early March, with some indications dating back to January. Local health authorities attributed the outbreak to the open-pit lagoons of manure and biological wastes surrounding the farms.
On April 5, authorities declared a health cordon in the area but failed to carry out tests to determine an exact diagnosis of the strange illness showing up in local residents. They discovered that 60% of the community's 3,000 people reported an undiagnosed respiratory disease. Meanwhile, the U.S. Center for Disease Control (CDC) determined on April 17 that two patient samples from San Diego were a new H1N1 virus. On April 21 the CDC issued a dispatch to its Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report to warn of the discovery. The San Diego cases were then linked to the suspicious cases popping up in Mexico and the alert went out of a possible pandemic.
Emergency measures in Mexico were not declared until April 23. On April 25, the World Health Organization (WHO) director-general declared the outbreak a Public Health Emergency of International Concern. On April 27, with the epidemic already rapidly spreading throughout the country and the press and public pressuring for accurate information, the Mexican government announced that little Edgar Hernandez was the first confirmed case of a new swine flu transmitted to and through humans.
On June 11, the WHO declared the virus a pandemic. The latest WHO report shows 162,380 confirmed cases worldwide and 1,154 deaths as of July 31. The Americas where the virus originated is the hardest-hit with 1,008 deaths, concentrated in the United States, Mexico, and Argentina. Defending the Factory Farm
Experts have long warned that "industrial farm animal production" (IFAP) leads to potentially serious human health impacts. A tragically prophetic study done by the Pew Commission on Industrial Farm Animal Production of 2008 concludes, " one of the most serious unintended consequences of industrial food animal production is the growing public health threat of these types of facilities. In addition to the contribution of IFAP to the major threat of antimicrobial resistance, IFAP facilities can be harmful to workers, neighbors, and even those living far from the facilities through air and water pollution, and via the spread of disease."
The study continues, "Workers in and neighbors of IFAP facilities experience high levels of respiratory problems, including asthma. In addition, workers can serve as a bridging population, transmitting animal-borne diseases to a wider population."
As residents of La Gloria protested the stench and pointed to the hog farm as the source of their sickness, Mexican authorities went out of their way to divert suspicions that Smithfield's Carroll Farms had anything to do with the unusual illnesses being reported. Although state health officials sprayed the village of La Gloria to kill off swarms of flies coming from the company's nearby open-pit manure lagoons, explanations lit on anything but the hog farm.
A Carroll Farms representative called the fact that the first swine flu case was located within a few miles of the pig farm "an unfortunate coincidence." Reportedly, Carroll Farms sent samples from its herd for testing at some point soon after the outbreak and both the company itself and the Mexican government absolved Smithfield pigs from any role in the epidemic.
To reinforce the "coincidence" thesis, international health authorities began a concerted effort to hide the pig. In fact, there is no dispute in the scientific evidence that the virus got its start on a hog farm.
Citing the U.S. Centers for Disease Control, Scientific American points out a starting point that the politicians preferred to ignore: "What is clear thanks to the hard work of virologists is that this particular strain of flu got its genetic start on U.S. hog farms back in the 1990s."
Ruben Donis, chief of the molecular virology and vaccines branch at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, stated in an interview with Science magazine:
"We know it's quite similar to viruses that were circulating in the United States and are still circulating in the United States and that are self-limiting, and they usually only are found in Midwestern states where there is swine farming." Asked if the virus had swine origins, he replied, "Definitely. It's almost equidistant to swine viruses from the United States and Eurasia. And it's a lonely branch there. It doesn't have any close relatives."
For years scientists have known that pigs incubate and mutate viruses and many have warned that "factory farms" where large numbers are kept in close quarters create a perfect breeding ground for the rapid evolution of disease. The massive use of antibiotics means that viruses seek mutations resistant to the medicines. In the past, few cases of swine flu passing to human transmission were reported but it has long been known that it is possible. This virus posed a particular risk because of its virulent capacity for human-to-human contagion.
Since the early days of the outbreak, evidence has piled up on the swine origin of the disease. Co-author of a key report in Nature, biologist Michael Worobey said, "The current strain evidently spread without anyone noticing it for 10 years," referring to spread among pig populations. Science News quotes him, concluding, "Across the genome, this is something that came from pigs We need to spend more energy looking at what's in pigs."
The consensus is that the H1N1 virus is a mutant form of swine flu, human seasonal flu, and bird flu. In itself, it is not lethal, but it leads to complications of "atypical pneumonia." The pneumonia is atypical because it occurs out of season and because victims tend to concentrate in the middle age range-unlike regular pneumonia that picks off the very young and the very old, deaths of this virus tend to be within the 20-40 range.
As health organizations struggle to confront the pandemic, animal health experts call for more action on the swine side. Perez notes, "We can do all the surveillance we want in humans, but if we really want to prevent pandemic influenza a fundamental change in efforts on the animal health side has to be made." This expert piece of advice, repeated on many fronts, has been largely ignored. A June 17 Nature editorial points out one of the main reasons:
" animal-health specialists tend to work through government agencies, whose primary mission is to promote and protect national and international livestock and meat trade. This focus on commerce can sometimes lead to conflicts of interest, as well as some policy positions that border on denial."
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The Great Swine Flu Cover-Up
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By Laura Carlsen
Americas Program, September 10, 2009
Straight to the Source
