From Jornal do Brasil:
Things Policy - Influenza in pigs and minds of men
Mauro Santayana Mauro Santayana
The government of Mexico and agribusiness seek deny the obvious: the flu scare that the world began in La Gloria, Perote district, 10 km from the creation of pigs Granjas Carroll, a subsidiary of the powerful multinational business, to Smithfield Foods. La Gloria is one of the poorest villages of the country.
The first to contract the disease (the patient zero, according to medical language) Edgar Hernandez was the boy of 4 years, which managed to survive after being medicated. Probably your body has served as a platform for the genetic combination that would make the virus more powerful. A strange flu had been found in La Gloria, in December last year and in March, it has spread rapidly.
Residents of La Gloria - some employees of Carroll - have no doubt: the source of the disease is the rearing of pigs, which produces almost 1 million animals per year.
According to the animal feces and urine are deposited in oxidation ponds, in the open, on whose surface thick cloud of flies they reproduce. The industry became a hellish life of the residents of La Gloria, which are located on the lower slopes of the mountain, receiving the polluted water in streams and groundwater. The contamination of the underground tanks has been denounced by the authorities, by a municipal health officer, Bertha Chrysostom, even in February, began to emerge when cases of flu and diarrhea in the community, but said nothing.
According to Mr Duran Athanasius, the Granjas Carroll had been expelled from Virginia and North Carolina for environmental damage.
Within the rules of NAFTA, could move in 1994 to Perote, with support from the Mexican government. By treaty, the U.S. company is not subject to the control of the country.
It is the tragedy of the countries dominated by neoliberalism: always accept the rot that kills.
The episode leads to some reflections on the modern agro-industrial system. As the purpose of business is profit, all its operations, including those of political nature, is subject to that right.
The concentration of the food industry with the creation and killing of animals in large scale, even when accompanied by all the care, is a permanent threat to workers and neighbors. The establishment on a small scale - at the family farm - has, among other benefits, to limit the possible cases of illness, with the immediate elimination of the outbreak.
The animals are fed diets that lead 17% of fish meal as the Organic Consumers Association, the United States, although the pigs did not eat fish in nature.
According to other sources, the animals are vaccinated, treated preventively with antibiotics and antiviral drugs, hormones and undergoing genetic mutations, which also explains its resistance to some infectious agents. Thus, they become hosts that can transmit the virus to humans, as occurred in Mexico, according to assume the health authorities.
The Granjas Carroll - as in other latitudes and with companies of all types - have a social foundation in the region, which apply tiny portion of their profits. It is the duty of hypocrisy.
Thus, these capitalists engambelam public opinion and neutralize opposition to the community.
A social action should be the state, funded with the resources fair tax.
What has happened is that the opposite: the states subsidize large companies, and these give crumbs to the wrong call "social action".
When accused of violating the law, companies are justified - as occurs in Brazil, with Daslu - arguing that funds studies of a dozen children, distributing a hundred baskets and maintain a basic block of volleyball in the vicinity.
The Mexican government pressure, and the World Health Organization agreed to rename the swine for avian influenza-A.
To remove the adjective which identified its etiology, hid the information that people are entitled.
The disease was diagnosed in a boy from La Gloria, beside the waters infected by Granjas Carroll, an American company creates pigs, and on examination was found the strain of swine flu.
The rest, which is known so far, is the collusion between the conservative government of Mexico and Granjas Carroll - with the complicity of the WHO.
Sexta-feira, 01 de Maio de 2009 - 00:00 Friday, May 01, 2009 - 00:00
