Cover-Up: Mexican Government Lying About Swine Flu
by Fintan Dunne, BreakForNews.com, 29th April, 2009, 07:00 EST
Amid a growing international focus on a suspicious mass flu outbreak around intensive pig production facilities in Mexico, government officials there have resorted to lying about the type of flu which struck hundreds of locals.
At a press conference on Monday, Mexican Health Minister José Ángel Córdova assured the media that a flu outbreak in the town of La Gloria was not Swine Flu, but an already-known and different flu strain. The town is set among 72 industrial pig production facilities part-owned by the multinational Smithfield Foods,
He said that of 35 mucous samples taken from flu victims, only one sample matched the Swine Flu strain which is causing international concern. That sample was taken from Edgar Hernandez Hernandez, a 4-year-old local boy who fell ill and has now recovered.
Local Veracruz governor Fidel Herrera echoed his Health Minister's comments on Tuesday, stating that: "there is not a single indicator" to suggest La Gloria was the epicenter of Mexico's Swine Flu outbreak.
The government position is that barring this single boy, the rest of the samples indicate locals fell foul of the known flu strain H2N3, not the new variant A/H1N1 strain.
AGAINST THE ODDS
But there is a serious flaw in the Mexican government's public position. After hundreds of mucous samples had been collected from flu victims across Mexico, health officials took a small subset of those samples and in mid-April sent them out of Mexico to US laboratories for further scientific analysis. Of the 35 samples they had secured from the inhabitants of La Gloria, only one sample was included in that smaller subset sent to the US. That sample was the one taken from 4-year-old EdgarHernandez Hernandez.
So the Mexican Government wants us to believe that by sheer chance they happened to pick the only A/H1N1 sample in La Gloria, and that the other 34 samples still in the custody of Mexican health authorities are the knownH2N3 strain!
A trivial calculation show that the odds of that serendipitous sample selection are 35 to 1.
Those odds against the Mexican government increase when we consider that residents of La Gloria say that they had symptoms which were identical to those reported by Swine Flu victims across Mexico.
La Gloria resident Jose Luis Martinez, told Associated Press that he heard a description of the symptoms of other Mexican victims on television: fever, coughing, joint aches, severe headache, vomiting and diarrhea. "..We said to ourselves, 'This is what we had. The symptoms they are suffering are the same that we had here."
Writing from La Gloria for the London Guardian, Jo Tuckman recounts the experience of another local:
The official line rubbishing any possible link between the Swine Flu outbreak and the wealthy multinational Smithfield Foods will hardly come as a surprise to La Gloria locals. In previous years, some of them have been jailed for protesting the effect of the company's million-pig-per-annum operations on them and their environment. A resident speaking anonymously to the London Guardian said: "This is a company with lots of power and lots of dollars. They have always been protected by the government and there is not much we can do about it."
The Mexican government's handling of the flu outbreak hasn't impressed people outside of La Gloria either. One Mexican told Associated Press: "Nobody believes the government anymore."
But the officials are nothing but insistent in their claims "This virus did not start in this area. It originated in Asia and spread into Mexico via the United States," said Veracruz governor Fidel Herrera when visiting La Gloria.
Considering the odds against their public claims, if Mexican officials were to repeat their position in court, a judge might well warn them that lying under oath is a serious business. And if they persisted they could face prosecution for perjury and even jail.
What are the odds of that happening?
About the same odds as the odds of Smithfield Foods owner Joseph Luter III, described as the world's richest "pig baron", giving up his vast fortune; starting a sustainable farm; and befriending some of the 27 million pigs his company slaughters every year.
Amid a growing international focus on a suspicious mass flu outbreak around intensive pig production facilities in Mexico, government officials there have resorted to lying about the type of flu which struck hundreds of locals.
At a press conference on Monday, Mexican Health Minister José Ángel Córdova assured the media that a flu outbreak in the town of La Gloria was not Swine Flu, but an already-known and different flu strain. The town is set among 72 industrial pig production facilities part-owned by the multinational Smithfield Foods,
He said that of 35 mucous samples taken from flu victims, only one sample matched the Swine Flu strain which is causing international concern. That sample was taken from Edgar Hernandez Hernandez, a 4-year-old local boy who fell ill and has now recovered.
Local Veracruz governor Fidel Herrera echoed his Health Minister's comments on Tuesday, stating that: "there is not a single indicator" to suggest La Gloria was the epicenter of Mexico's Swine Flu outbreak.
The government position is that barring this single boy, the rest of the samples indicate locals fell foul of the known flu strain H2N3, not the new variant A/H1N1 strain.
AGAINST THE ODDS
But there is a serious flaw in the Mexican government's public position. After hundreds of mucous samples had been collected from flu victims across Mexico, health officials took a small subset of those samples and in mid-April sent them out of Mexico to US laboratories for further scientific analysis. Of the 35 samples they had secured from the inhabitants of La Gloria, only one sample was included in that smaller subset sent to the US. That sample was the one taken from 4-year-old EdgarHernandez Hernandez.So the Mexican Government wants us to believe that by sheer chance they happened to pick the only A/H1N1 sample in La Gloria, and that the other 34 samples still in the custody of Mexican health authorities are the knownH2N3 strain!
A trivial calculation show that the odds of that serendipitous sample selection are 35 to 1.
Those odds against the Mexican government increase when we consider that residents of La Gloria say that they had symptoms which were identical to those reported by Swine Flu victims across Mexico.
La Gloria resident Jose Luis Martinez, told Associated Press that he heard a description of the symptoms of other Mexican victims on television: fever, coughing, joint aches, severe headache, vomiting and diarrhea. "..We said to ourselves, 'This is what we had. The symptoms they are suffering are the same that we had here."
Writing from La Gloria for the London Guardian, Jo Tuckman recounts the experience of another local:
"I watch what is going on in Mexico City and we say to each other that is exactly what happened to us," says Rosa Jimenez, as she walks down the road holding her toddler's hand with a filthy mask around her neck. She notes that many families in La Gloria have relatives who work in Mexico City but came back to the village for the Easter week celebrations. "Could that be how it spread to the capital?" she asks.Reporting from Mexico City for the London Independent, Ioan Grillo heard similar stories:
"We have been fighting this disease for months now and complaining about the pig waste for years," said La Gloria resident Erasto Bautista, 45, talking by telephone from the state capital Veracruz. "We are glad to see that the world is finally listening to us."When residents of La Gloria began to get seriously ill from as far back as mid-February, health officials astonishingly downplayed their severe symptoms as merely atypical colds. Nevertheless locals say they were told the 'cold' was probably caused by the flies from the pig farms, and fumigation teams were sent to get rid of the flies.
Like many other residents, Mr Bautista often works on building sites in Mexico City, explaining how the flu could have quickly spread here and make it the world epicenter in the virus. Mr Bautista said he himself fell sick from the flu in January, keeping him bed ridden for a week.
"My head was so painful it almost exploded. The body aches were so strong that I couldn't move," he said, describing symptoms strikingly similar to those plaguing swine flu sufferers in Mexico City hospital beds."
The official line rubbishing any possible link between the Swine Flu outbreak and the wealthy multinational Smithfield Foods will hardly come as a surprise to La Gloria locals. In previous years, some of them have been jailed for protesting the effect of the company's million-pig-per-annum operations on them and their environment. A resident speaking anonymously to the London Guardian said: "This is a company with lots of power and lots of dollars. They have always been protected by the government and there is not much we can do about it."
The Mexican government's handling of the flu outbreak hasn't impressed people outside of La Gloria either. One Mexican told Associated Press: "Nobody believes the government anymore."
But the officials are nothing but insistent in their claims "This virus did not start in this area. It originated in Asia and spread into Mexico via the United States," said Veracruz governor Fidel Herrera when visiting La Gloria.
Considering the odds against their public claims, if Mexican officials were to repeat their position in court, a judge might well warn them that lying under oath is a serious business. And if they persisted they could face prosecution for perjury and even jail.
What are the odds of that happening?
About the same odds as the odds of Smithfield Foods owner Joseph Luter III, described as the world's richest "pig baron", giving up his vast fortune; starting a sustainable farm; and befriending some of the 27 million pigs his company slaughters every year.
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REFERENCES:
http://www.independent.co.uk/
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/
http://www.guardian.co.uk/
http://www.thefirstpost.co.uk/
http://money.cnn.com/
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/
http://www.wtop.com/
http://www.chron.com/
http://www.redorbit.com/
Original article content Copyright © BreakForNews.com, 2009
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