How "The NAFTA Flu" Exploded

Maybe it's because I'm not a disease expert, but it seems like something's missing.  You explain how NAFTA allowed deplorable environmental conditions to immigrate to Mexico, but you haven't really explained how that led to the flu.  I'll agree that the farms shouldn't be able to operate that way, but what does that have to do with influenza?  It looks like this is the syllogism you're trying to construct:

A: NAFTA is responsible for poor environmental practices in pig farms.

B: Poor environmental practices in pig farms are responsible for the swine flu.

C: Therefore, NAFTA is responsible for the swine flu.

Maybe B is obvious to some- I can imagine how that's possible- but it's not obvious to me.  If you want this to become the NAFTA flu so you can use it as an argument against NAFTA, you need to hit B a little harder.  Not a dissertation on epidemiology, but maybe a couple quotes from prominent scientists explaining how the flu developed would do the trick.

This would all be well and good if you were correct about the fact that it was Smithfields Farms...

CNN reports, "Officials have conducted tests at the farm owned by U.S. company Smithfield Foods, and those tests came back negative."

This is just more propaganda.

Dan - Oh really? What "officials" conducted "tests"? What kind of tests? How many of the 2,000+ hogs slaughtered a day at the Smithfield plant in La Gloria were tested? None of those questions have been answered. In fact, Smithfield barred CNN's Dr. Gupta from entering the facility.

If you understood how things work in Mexico (from where I've reported for a dozen years now), you'd know that there is no public health authority with inspection powers comparable to those in the US, and what is there is very easily corrupted. You're reciting the company spin as if it's "truth." A little common sense would be recommended, since you don't seem to know how it works in the region that you're making such blanket statements about.

Dan.  The propaganda is the CNN report saying the tests were negative. Cheers Al on your great work.

Another reason to scrap TLCAN as it known to us who live in Mexico, but the establishment, including Ana Maria Salazar continue to flood the mainstream media of Mexico telling us what a great deal it is. And to think Smithfield got booted from North Carolina!

Thanks to Narco News for keeping the truth out there.

Smithfield has a history of oppression. Just look at the following links dating backing to 2006 with references from La Jornada and El Universal.

http://www.elpinerodelacuenca.com.mx/epc/index.php?option=com_content&vi...

http://lopezobradordvds.blogspot.com/2009/04/granjas-carrol-epidemia-la-...

I know this may sound a bit extreme, but I believe we need to stop eating meat.  Try to at least stop eating from these major food distributors and try local farmers or organic/free range meat.  It's a start!

This is one of the more distrubing aspects of the new infulenza strain - "deaths of this virus tend to be within the 20-40 range" - see The Globalization of Disease by Laura Carlsen. The only explantion at the moment is what is called cytokine storms, in essence a healthy immune system overreacts and kills a person.

A cytokine storm is the systemic expression of a healthy and vigorous immune system resulting in the release of more than 150 inflammatory mediators (cytokines, oxygen free radicals, and coagulation factors). Both pro-inflammatory cytokines (such as Tumor Necrosis Factor-alpha, InterLeukin-1, and InterLeukin-6) and anti-inflammatory cytokines (such as interleukin 10, and interleukin 1 receptor antagonist) are elevated in the serum, and the fierce and often lethal interplay of these cytokines is referred to as a "Cytokine Storm". The primary contributors to the cytokine storm are TNF-a (Tumor Necrosis Factor-alpha) and IL-6 (Interleukin-6). The cytokine storm is an inappropriate (exaggerated) immune response that is caused by rapidly proliferating and highly activated T-cells or natural killer (NK) cells. These cells are themselves activated by infected macrophages. The cytokine storm must be treated and suppressed or lethality can result.

Commomly death is caused by ARDS - Acute Respirtory Distress Syndrome or organ failure. ARDS is what killed many Bird Flu victims. The CDC and WHO have not mentioned cytokine storms in any of the new flu deaths to my knowlegde, but it should not be ruled out. It is commonly believed this was the main reason the 1918 Flu Pandemic killed healthy adults, and fewer children  and elderly.

Source: CYTOKINE STORM and the INFLUENZA PANDEMIC Angela L. Petrosino, MPH, CHES (Northwest Ohio Consortium for Public Health)

Smithfield is pretty terrible, but I would be cautionious in drawing conclusions too soon. It's still mostly conjecture.

I appreciate your take, I just wish you would consider the fact that moving Smithfield to Mexico is not about taking American jobs but about exploiting a more vulnerable working class. If people stopping thinking themselves into these Nationalist ruts and instead fostered transcontinental worker solidarity, poor working conditions, that cause all kids of maladies, might be prevented everywhere.

The great pandemic of 1918-20 was named "Spanish" flu because Spain, not being involved in WW I, had no wartime press censorship.  Spanish media thus reported on the flu as it spread around the globe, while wartime powers did not.  Why not?  Presumably so as not to discourage men from enlisting to fight.  The U.S. did not acknowledge the epidemic until September 1918.  Between the original spring outbreak in Kansas at Fort Riley, and the September return to the Boston harbor of a troop ship of infected soldiers, hundreds of thousands had already died.  Press headlines blared: Spanish flu had arrived on our shores.  Katherine Anne Porter's classic short novel, Pale Horse, Pale Rider, is about the corruption of the media as much as it is about the flu.

Rob,

I recently read an article by Mike Davis and this is what he had to say:

THERE SHOULD be no excuses. This is not a "black swan" flapping its wings. Indeed, the central paradox of this swine flu panic is that while totally unexpected, it was accurately predicted.

Six years ago, Science dedicated a major story (reported by the admirable Bernice Wuethrich) to evidence that "after years of stability, the North American swine flu virus has jumped onto an evolutionary fast track."

The article goes on to show some of what I think you're looking for.

Heres the link:

http://socialistworker.org/2009/04/27/capitalism-and-the-flu

I hope this helps.

BB

I did some googling to find out if this flu could come from hogs, and if the "factory farming" operations were causing the outbreak by being incubators of the H1N1 virus.

All I got was confused.

Some say it is now known if this flu outbreak is even really "Swine Flu" since it has bird and other virus components in it.

But did the hog farms spawn it, whatever it is? - Mexico's Ag Minister says: "pigs at the farm are from North America, while the genetic material in the virus is from Europe and Asia" [if we can believe him]

In general: "It is speculated that pigs maintain the virus by passing the virus to young susceptible animals."

--from a 1994 essay here>

http://mark.asci.ncsu.edu/HealthyHogs/book1994/woodlief.htm

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Some links to articles on this topic at this link:

http://www.healthobservatory.org/headlines.cfm

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NADA, I did not find out.... please inform!!

Smithfield Farms obviously uses pretty reprehensible farming practices, and I agree with the previous commenter who suggests that we (where by "we" I mean pretty much the whole world, but especially the US) should cut down on our imported meat consumption. In addition, I would suggest that we should cut down on our overall meat consumption significantly.

That having been said, I'm disappointed that no attempt was made in this article to demonstrate correlation between Smithfield Farms and this flu epidemic.

Granted, I wouldn't believe anything Smithfield Farms has to say on the subject. But what lab ran the testing? Does anyone have any reason to believe that the lab results are not accurate?

Less speculation and insinuation, more facts, please.

.....for being an independent journalist.

Viruses are but one issue connected to raising masses of hogs in confined quarters. The spread of antibiotic resistance is another serious matter. The use of pharmaceuticals in hog raising has contributed to increased resistance and the dumping of hog waste, as noted in the article, has led to contaminated water. If your city's fresh water intake is down stream from a hog farm, are you likely to be exposed to antibiotic resistant genes (ARGs) in your drinking water? Amy Pruden's work shows that chlorine levels used in water treatment do not affect the ARGs, principally because these are not alive cells but cell fragments that can confer disease. Further, the ARGs are so small that many of the current filter systems used by water treatment plants can not contain them. Thus they wind up in the drinking water supply Those genes will interact with the bacteria in your gut and the transferred genetic information may remain there for several years.

Once ingested, the genetic elements may be transferred to normal flora, and subsequently to pathogenic bacteria found in humans making later treatment with particular antibiotics ineffective. Also one must consider transfer of genetic information from these bacteria to more robust bacteria, such as an incoming pathogen, as highlighted by Sjolund et al. (2005). These authors indicated that resistance in the normal flora, which may last up to four-years, might contribute to increased resistance in higher-grade pathogens through interspecies transfer. The four years here was the length of Sjolund's study and not necessarily the outer limit.

Sjolund et al go on to note that since populations of the normal biota are large, this affords the chance for multiple and different resistant variants to develop. This thus enhances the risk for spread to populations of pathogens. Furthermore, there is crossed resistance. For example, vancomycin resistance may be maintained by using macrolides.

So, how fast can antibiotic resistance develop, keeping in mind that infections with antibiotic resistant pathogens now kill more people than AIDS.

Schentag, et al. (2003), followed surgical patients with the subsequent results. Pre-op nasal cultures found Staphylococcus aureus 100% antibiotic susceptible. Pre-op prophylactic antibiotics were administered. Following surgery, cephalosporin was administered. Ninety percent of the patients went home at post-op day 2 without infectious complications. Nasal bacteria counts on these patients had dropped from 10/5th to 10/3rd, but were now a mix of sensitive, borderline, and resistant Staphylococcus sp. By comparison, prior to surgery, all of the patients’ Staphylococcus samples had been susceptible to antibiotics. For the patients remaining in the hospital and who were switched on post-op day 5 to a second generation cephalosporin (ceftazidine), showed bacterial counts up 1000-fold when assayed on post-op day 7 and most of these were methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA). These patients were switched to a 2-week course of vancomycin. Cultures from those remaining in the hospital on day 21, revealed vancomycin resistant enterococcus (VRE) and candida. Vancomycin resistant enterococci infections can produce mortality rates of between 42 and 81%.
Note in the above, that these patients harbored NO resistant bacteria in their nasal cavities upon entry to the hospital. But what would be the result if there had been inadvertent acquisition of resistance from environmental contamination such as through hog sewage dumped in rivers or washing into rivers during floods?

This then brings into question the current paradigm on infection and its dose response to a certain load of a particular pathogen, i.e., ID 50s. Lateral transfer of mobile genetic elements conferring resistance is not considered in this old paradigm. With the prodigious capacity for the gut bacteria to multiply, once the lateral transfer has taken place, very small original numbers---well below the old paradigms can be multiplied into impressive numbers. Since viruses and phages are also involved, their capacity to multiply, which dwarfs that of bacteria, must also be included. Thus there is a need for a new paradigm; unfortunately, the regulatory community in this country seems not to recognize this.

La Gloria is only a dozen miles from Perote, where Smithfield has a joint venture with "Agroindustries de Mexico" under the name of Granjas Carroll - they produce a million hogs per year there, a huge environmental mess.

Want a good laugh? See the Wall Street Journal coverage - they mention La Gloria, but not Granjas Carroll - La Gloria is just 'a dusty village in Mexico'

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124113876438075685.html

For the real picture, here's an anonymous comment from a local:

"I’m native of La Gloria’s zone. I spent my childhood there, and before coming to the States to do my master’s degree I used to visit my relatives there 4 times per year."

"It’s criminal what that Smithfood’s subsidiary is doing with our land and our people. Of course, the article does not provide any conclusive evidence to support the idea of La Gloria being the origin of swine flue. Actually it does not pretend to do so."

"It’s just an account of all destructive power giant companies can inflict to impoverished towns. (People there earn between 100 -200 usd per month)."

"Our environment is being harmed by an american-owned company. I would like to see how you’d feel if everyday you wake up in the morning smelling pig’s poop (pig’s farms are located less than 2 miles from my hometown)"

http://localfoods.wordpress.com/2009/04/28/pictures-of-granjas-carroll-d...