home » Political implications of the Smithfield-H1N1 story

Political implications of the Smithfield-H1N1 story

by Paula | 29 April 2009 | permalink | comments
Tags: food, disease
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The Smithfield-H1N1 story is finally picking up traction in the MSM. So far the Times Online has done the best job, at least as far as I’ve seen, making both the links and unknowns regarding Smithfield subsidiary Granjas Carroll’s role in the H1N1 outbreak clear. It also does an excellent job placing events in Perote in context.

The Mexican Government said it initially thought that the victim, Edgar Hernandez, 4, was suffering from ordinary influenza but laboratory testing has since shown that he had contracted swine flu. The boy went on to make a full recovery, although it is thought that at least 148 others in Mexico have died from the disease, and the number is expected to rise.

News of the infected boy is expected to create controversy in Mexico because the boy lived in Veracruz state, home to thousands of farmers who claim that their land was stolen from them by the Mexican Government in 1992. The farmers, who call themselves Los 400 Pueblos – The 400 Towns – are famous for their naked marches through the streets of Mexico City.

The boy’s hometown, La Gloria, is also close to a pig farm that raises almost 1 million animals a year. The facility, Granjas Carroll de Mexico, is partly owned by Smithfield Foods, a Virginia-based US company and the world’s largest producer and processor of pork products. Residents of La Gloria have long complained about the clouds of flies that are drawn the so-called “manure lagoons” created by such mega-farms, known in the agriculture business as Confined Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs).

It is now known that there was a widespread outbreak of a powerful respiratory disease in the La Gloria area earlier this month, with some of the town’s residents falling ill in February. Health workers soon intervened, sealing off the town and spraying chemicals to kill the flies that were reportedly swarming through people’s homes.

Good god, who knew?? Talk about a black swan! If the outbreak is definitively tied to Granjas Carroll’s CAFOs in Perote, the whole world will side with the Mexican peasantry against predatory corporate practices in not only Mexico but the whole of Central & Latin America. The implications for the global food infrastructure are staggering.

For even further context, check out this comment at my original Smithfield-H1N1 post:

I live in Mexico and have lots of links (in spanish) about the connection between the swine flu outbreak and the operation of Granjas Carroll in La Gloria. Citizens of this town have been fighting for years trying to stop the dangerous activities of this multi-national company. They have been harassed, imprisoned and still await their sentence. Granjas Carroll and the corrupt mexican government treat these people like criminals and deny all evidence that the pandemic has any connection with the operation of the pig breeding farms in Mexico.

As soon as the people in La Gloria started to get sick and die, the inhabitants had no doubts about where the disease was coming from. Health authorities said that it was the people’s fault if they were getting sick because they used traditional remedies instead of going to the hospitals. But citizens were indeed seeking for medical help, only to find ignorance, not medicines there. The health authorities in Veracruz reported that people were getting sick because the climate was very cold and there was too much dust in the air.

It’s not necessary to be really smart to see that if we have a new virus coming from pigs and this virus originated in Mexico, then the most likely scenario would be that Granjas Carroll should be held responsible for this. There are pictures available of the contaminated water bodies and the large piles of dead pig bodies stacked out in the open. Wether the virus spread though the contact with contaminated water or through the flies it’s unclear. However, I think that Granjas Carroll owes an explaination to the mexican people and the rest of the world.

Do you have any idea about what can we do so that people start talking about this? Here in Mexico all this information has been hidden in the last few days and corruption is likely to win the battle if nobody takes action. I think this is a nice example about how free trade agreements and globalization can affect third world countries and ultimately, the rest of the world. Please help us spread the truth!!!

If you’re unemployed and wondering WTF to do to earn a living, think up something simple related to food. You can easily put together a local-foods buying club from your kitchen table, or partner with an existing CSA to make deliveries. At the very least you’ll be able to cover your own food ass.

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