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  • From: "Tradingpost" <tradingpost@lobo.net>
  • To: livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [Livingontheland] Flying Pigs, Tamiflu and Factory Farms
  • Date: Wed, 29 Apr 2009 17:20:52 -0600


Flying Pigs, Tamiflu and Factory Farms
By F. William Engdahl
Global Research, April 29, 2009
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=13408

If we are to believe what our trusted international media report, the
world is on the brink of a global pandemic outbreak of a new deadly
strain of flu, H1N1 as it has been labelled, or more popularly, Swine
Flu. As the story goes, the outbreak of the deadly flu was first
discovered in Mexico. According to press reports, after several days,
headlines reported as many as perhaps 150 deaths in Mexico were
believed caused by this virulent people-killing pig virus that has
spread to humans and now is allegedly being further spread from human
to human. Cases were being reported hourly from Canada to Spain and
beyond. The only thing wrong with this story is that it is largely
based on lies, hype and coverup of possible real causes of Mexican
deaths.

One website, revealingly named Swine Flu Vaccine, reports the
alarming news, ‘One out of every five residents of Mexico's most
populous city wore masks to protect themselves against the virus as
Mexico City seems to be the epicenter of the outbreak. As many as 103
deaths have been attributed to the swine flu so far with many more
feared to be on the horizon. The health department of Mexico said an
additional 1,614 reported cases have been documented.’ We are told

that the H1N1 ‘shares genetic material from human, avian and swine

influenza viruses.’1

Airports around the world have installed passenger temperature scans
to identify anyone with above normal body temperature as possible
suspect for swine flu. Travel to Mexico has collapsed. Sales of flu
vaccines, above all Tamiflu from Roche Inc., have exploded in days.
People have stopped buying pork fearing certain death. The World
Health Organization has declared ‘a public health emergency of
international concern,’ defined by them as ‘an occurrence
or
imminent threat of illness or health conditions caused by
bioterrorism, epidemic or pandemic disease, or highly fatal
infectious agents or toxins that pose serious risk to a significant
number of people.’2

What are the symptoms of this purported Swine Flu? That’s not at
all
clear according to virologists and public health experts. They say
Swine Flu symptoms are relatively general and nonspecific. ‘So many

different things can cause these symptoms. it is a dilemma,’ says
one doctor interviewed by CNN. ‘There is not a perfect test right
now to let a doctor know that a person has the Swine Flu.’ It has
been noted that most individuals with Swine Flu had an early onset of
fever. Also it was common to see dizziness, body aches and vomiting
in addition to the common sneezing, headache and other cold symptoms.
These are symptoms so general as to say nothing.

The US Government’s Center for Disease Control (CDC) in Atlanta
states on its official website, ‘Swine Influenza (swine flu) is a
respiratory disease of pigs caused by type A influenza viruses that
causes regular outbreaks in pigs. People do not normally get swine
flu, but human infections can and do happen. Swine flu viruses have
been reported to spread from person-to-person, but in the past, this
transmission was limited and not sustained beyond three people.’
Nonetheless they add, ‘CDC has determined that this swine influenza

A (H1N1) virus is contagious and is spreading from human to human.
However, at this time, it is not known how easily the virus spreads
between people.’3

How many media that have grabbed on the headline ‘suspected case of

Swine Flu’ in recent days bother to double check with the local
health authorities to ask some basic questions? For example, the
number of confirmed cases of H1N1 and their location? The number of
deaths confirmed to have resulted from H1N1? Dates of both? Number of
suspected cases and of suspected deaths related to the Swine Flu
disease?

Some known facts

According to Biosurveillance, itself part of Veratect, a US Pentagon
and Government-linked epidemic reporting center, on April 6, 2009
local health officials declared a health alert due to a respiratory
disease outbreak in La Gloria, Perote Municipality, Veracruz State,
Mexico.

They reported, ‘Sources characterized the event as a
‘strange’
outbreak of acute respiratory infection, which led to bronchial
pneumonia in some pediatric cases. According to a local resident,
symptoms included fever, severe cough, and large amounts of phlegm.
Health officials recorded 400 cases that sought medical treatment in
the last week in La Gloria, which has a population of 3,000;
officials indicated that 60% of the town’s population
(approximately
1,800 cases) has been affected. No precise timeframe was provided,
but sources reported that a local official had been seeking health
assistance for the town since February.’ What they later say is
‘strange’ is not the form of the illness but the time of
year as
most flu cases occur in Mexico in the period October to February.
The report went on to note, ‘Residents claimed that three pediatric

cases, all under two years of age, died from the outbreak. However,
health officials stated that there was no direct link between the
pediatric deaths and the outbreak; they stated the three fatal cases
were "isolated" and "not related" to each other.’

Then, most revealingly, the aspect of the story which has been
largely ignored by major media, they reported, ‘Residents 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.’4

Since the dawn of American ‘agribusiness,’ a project
initiated
with funding by the Rockefeller Foundation in the 1950’s to turn
farming into a pure profit maximization business, US pig or hog
production has been transformed into a highly efficient, mass
production industrialized enterprise from birth to slaughter. Pigs
are caged in what are called Factory Farms, industrial concentrations
which are run with the efficiency of a Dachau or Bergen-Belsen
concentration camp. They are all conceived by artificial insemination
and once born, are regularly injected with antibiotics, not because
of illnesses which abound in the hyper-crowded growing pens, but in
order to make them grow and add weight faster. Turn around time to
slaughter is a profit factor of highest priority. The entire
operation is vertically integrated from conception to slaughter to
transport distribution to supermarket.

Granjas Carroll de Mexico (GCM) happens to be such a Factory Farm
concentration facility for hogs. In 2008 they produced almost one
million factory hogs, 950,000 according to their own statistics. GCM
is a joint venture operation owned 50% by the world’s largest pig
producing industrial company, Smithfield Foods of Virginia.5 The pigs
are grown in a tiny rural area of Mexico, a member of the North
American Free Trade Agreement, and primarily trucked across the
border to supermarkets in the USA, under the Smithfields’ family of

labels. Most American consumers have no idea where the meat was raised.

Now the story becomes interesting.

Manure Lagoons and other playing fields

The Times of London interviewed the mother of 4-year-old Edgar
Hernandez of La Gloria in Veracruz, the location of the giant
Smithfield Foods hog production facility. Their local reporter
notes, ‘Edgar Hernández plays among the dogs and goats that
roam
through the streets, seemingly unaware that the swine flu he
contracted a few weeks ago — the first known case — has
almost
brought his country to a standstill and put the rest of the world on
alert. ‘I feel great,’ the five-year-old boy said.
‘But I had a
headache and a sore throat and a fever for a while. I had to lay down
in bed.’’

The reporters add, ‘It was confirmed on Monday (April 27 2009-w.e.)

that Edgar was the first known sufferer of swine flu, a revelation
that has put La Gloria and its surrounding factory pig farms and
‘manure lagoons’ at the centre of a global race to find how
this
new and deadly strain of swine flu emerged.’ 6

That’s quite interesting. They speak of ‘La Gloria and its

surrounding factory pig farms and ‘manure
lagoons.’’ Presumably
the manure lagoons around the LaGloria factory pig farm of Smithfield
Foods are the waste dumping place for the feces and urine waste from
at least 950,000 pigs a year that pass through the facility. The
Smithfield’s Mexico joint venture, Norson, states that alone they
slaughter 2,300 pigs daily. That’s a lot. It gives an idea of the
volumes of pig waste involved in the concentration facility at La
Gloria.

Significantly, according to the Times reporters, ‘residents of La
Gloria have been complaining since March that the odour from Granjas
Carroll’s pig waste was causing severe respiratory infections. They

held a demonstration this month at which they carried signs of pigs
crossed with an X and marked with the word peligro (danger).’7
There
have been calls to exhume the bodies of the children who died of
pneumonia so that they could be tested. The state legislature of
Veracruz has demanded that Smithfield’s Granjas Carroll release
documents about its waste-handling practices. Smithfield Foods
reportedly declined to comment on the request, saying that it would
‘not respond to rumours.’8

A research compilation by Ed Harris reported, ‘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.’9 That would imply
that the entire Swine Flu scare might have originated from the PR
spin doctors of the world’s largest industrial pig factory farm
operation, Smithfield Foods.

The Vera Cruz-based newspaper La Marcha blames Smithfield’s Granjos

Carroll for the outbreak, highlighting inadequate treatment of
massive quantities of animal waste from hog production.10

Understandably the company is perhaps more than a bit uncomfortable
with the sudden attention. The company, which supplies the
McDonald’s and Subway fast-food chains, was fined $12.3 million in

the United States 1997 for violating the Clean Water Act. Perhaps
they are in a remote tiny Mexican rural area enjoying a relatively
lax regulatory climate where they need not worry about being cited
for violations of any Clean Water Act.






Pig Factory Farm Industrial Production is a classic breeder of
disease and toxins but little attention is being paid to this source

Factory Farms as toxic concentrations

At the very least the driving force for giant industrial agribusiness
outsourcing of facilities to third world sites such as Veracruz,
Mexico has more to do with further cost reduction and lack of health
and safety scrutiny than it does with improving the health and safety
quality of the food end product. It has been widely documented and
subject of US Congressional reports that large-scale indoor animal
production facilities such as that of Granjos Carroll are notorious
breeding grounds for toxic pathogens.

A recent report by the US Pew Foundation in cooperation with the
Johns Hopkins School of Public Health notes, ‘the method of
producing food animals in the United States has changed from the
extensive system of small and medium-sized farms owned by a single
family to a system of large, intensive operations where the animals
are housed in large numbers in enclosed structures that resemble
industrial buildings more than they do a traditional barn. That
change has happened primarily out of view of consumers but has come
at a cost to the environment and a negative impact on public health,
rural communities, and the health and well-being of the animals
themselves. 11

The Pew study notes, ‘The diversified, independent, family-owned
farms of 40 years ago that produced a variety of crops and a few
animals are disappearing as an economic entity, replaced by much
larger, and often highly leveraged, farm factories. The animals that
many of these farms produce are owned by the meat packing companies
from the time they are born or hatched right through their arrival at
the processing plant and from there to market.’ 12

The study emphasizes that application of ‘untreated animal waste on

cropland can contribute to excessive nutrient loading, contaminate
surface waters, and stimulate bacteria and algal
growth and subsequent reductions in dissolved oxygen concentrations
in surface waters.’13

That is where the real investigation ought to begin, with the health
and sanitary dangers of the industrial factory pig farms like the one
at Perote in Veracruz. The media spread of panic-mongering reports of
every person in the world who happens to contract
‘symptoms’ which
vaguely resemble flu or even Swine Flu and the statements to date of
authorities such as WHO or CDC are far from conducive to a rational
scientific investigation..

Tamiflu and Rummy

In October 2005 the Pentagon ordered vaccination of all US military
personnel worldwide against what it called Avian Flu, H5N1. Scare
stories filled world media. Then, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld
announced he had budgeted more than $1 billion to stockpile the
vaccine, Oseltamivir sold under the name, Tamiflu. President Bush
called on Congress to appropriate another $2 billion for Tamiflu stocks.

What Rumsfeld neglected to report at the time was a colossal conflict
of interest. Prior to coming to Washington in January 2001, Rumsfeld
had been chairman of a California pharmaceutical company, Gilead
Sciences. Gilead Sciences held exclusive world patent rights to
Tamiflu, a drug it had developed and whose world marketing rights
were sold to the Swiss pharma giant, Roche. Rumsfeld was reportedly
the largest stock holder in Gilead which got 10% of every Tamiflu
dose Roche sold. 14 When it leaked out, the Pentagon issued a curt
statement to the effect that Secretary Rumsfeld had decided not to
sell but to retain his stock in Gilead, claiming that to sell would
have indicated something to hide.’ That agonizing decision won him

reported added millions as the Gilead share price soared more than
700% in weeks.

Tamiflu is no mild candy to be taken lightly. It has heavy side
effects. It contains matter that could have potentially deadly
consequences for a person’s breathing and often reportedly leads to

nausea, dizziness and other flu-like symptoms.

Since the outbreak of Swine Flu Panic (not Swine Flu but Swine Flu
Panic) sales of Tamiflu as well as any and every possible drug
marketed as flu related have exploded. Wall Street firms have rushed
to issue ‘buy’ recommendations for the company.
‘Gimme me a shot
Doc, I don’t care what it is…I don’ wanna
die…’

Panic and fear of death was used by the Bush Administration skilfully
to promote the Avian Flu fraud. With ominous echoes of the current
Swine Flu scare, Avian Flu was traced back to huge chicken factory
farms in Thailand and other parts of Asia whose products were shipped
across the world. Instead of a serious investigation into the
sanitary conditions of those chicken factory farms, the Bush
Administration and WHO blamed ‘free-roaming chickens’ on
small
family farms, a move that had devastating economic consequences to
the farmers whose chickens were being raised in the most sanitary
natural conditions. Tyson Foods of Arkansas and CG Group of Thailand
reportedly smiled all the way to the bank.

Now it remains to be seen if the Obama Administration will use the
scare around so-called Swine Flu to repeat the same scenario, this
time with ‘flying pigs’ instead of flying birds. Already
Mexican
authorities have reported that the number of deaths confirmed from so-
called Swine Flu is 7 not the 150 or more bandied in the media and
that most other suspected cases were ordinary flu or influenza.

(To be continued)

F. William Engdahl is author of Seeds of Destruction: The Hidden
Agenda of Genetic Manipulation (Global Rersearch, 2007, see below)
and A Century of War: Anglo-American Oil Politics and the New World
Order (Pluto Press). His new book, Full Spectrum Dominance:
Totalitarian Democracy in the New World Order (Third Millennium
Press) is due out end of May. He may be contacted through his
website: www.engdahl.oilgeopolitics.net.


Notes

1 Health Advisory, accessed in http://www.swine-flu-vaccine.info/.
2 Ibid.
3 Centers for Disease Control, Swine Influenza and You, accessed in
http://www.cdc.gov/swineflu/swineflu_you.htm.
4 Biosurveillance, Swine Flu in Mexico- Timeline of Events, April 24,
2009, accessed in
http://biosurveillance.typepad.com/biosurveillance/2009/04/swine-flu-
in-mexico-timeline-of-events.html.
5 Smithfield Foods website, accessed in
http://www.smithfieldfoods.com/our_company/our_family/Norson.aspx.
6] Ruth Maclean in La Gloria and Chris Ayres in Mexico City, I had a
headache and fever’ says boy who survived, London Times, April 28,

2009.
7] Ibid.
8 Ibid.
9 Ed Harris, Bloggers Examine Environmental Role in Mexico Swine Flu
Outbreak, April 27, 2009, accessed in
http://www.planetthoughts.org/?pg=pt/Whole&qid=2870.
10 Ibid.
11 The Pew Commission on Industrial Farm Animal Production, Putting
Meat on the Table: Industrial Farm
Animal Production in America, accessed in http://www.ncifap.org/
_images/PCIFAPFin.pdf.
12 Ibid.
13 Ibid.
14 F. William Engdahl, Is Avian Flu another Pentagon Hoax?,
GlobalResearch, October 30, 2005.





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