DAVIE – In an editorial last week I spoke to the notion that the so called swine flu is not really caused by pigs at all. That is not exactly true, but there is need for an explanation.
Even as health officials get suckered into introducing new designations for the influenza strain that appears to have originated in Mexico, to placate those in the pig industry there is a connection between pigs and this outbreak of illness.
Reports are that U.S. pig farming companies who operate in Mexico, because of stiffer laws in the U.S. are the culprits in causing the illness among Mexicans. Pig feces is allowed to contaminate the water that poor Mexicans have to drink, resulting in this illness that has taken these many lives.
So the Mexicans get socked twice. They die because of the greed and disrespect of U.S. business people operating pig farms in their country. Then now they have to suffer the indignity of racist remarks by Americans blaming them for causing swine flu.
But the real complicity here might have more to do with the reporting in the U.S. news outlets are too quick to take the side of big conglomerates than they are to investigate plain unadulterated nastiness on the part of business people.
Winston Barnes
