For years, the Holy See has appealed to the so-called wealthy nations to address the growing food crisis, which is directly related, as FTM will show, to the global economic crisis, which Benedict will address in his forthcoming encyclical on the Church's social doctrine. The encyclical is now slated for release on June 29, the feast of Saints Peter and Paul.
As FTM writes, the big, fearful news of the day is the emergence of swine flu, which, if a real threat, may be directly related to the crisis in agriculture, that is, the industrial scale farming that is depleting natural resources and polluting the earth.
If the emergence of the swine flu is traces back to a giant pig farm in Mexico, a subsidiary of the U.S. agribusiness giant, Smithfield Farms, the world's largest producer of pork, perhaps it will force the agribusiness giants to re-evaluate the morals and ethics involves in their businesses.
According to David Kirby, writing for the Huffington Post April 27, "lawmakers in the eastern state of Veracruz are now charging that large scale hog and poultry operations are 'breeding grounds' of infectionthat are making people sick and fueling the pandemic.
"on Sunday, the state government of Veracruz confirmed swine influenza in a five year old girl in the village of La Gloria, located near a massive U.S. owned hog facility. The bodies of two other village children who died in february and March will be exhumed and tested for signs of illness local media reports said.
"And in the western state of Guerrero, 500 pigs were just killed after becoming ill with the swine flu. The nations
's hog industry says it's not to blame for any human illness. 'We deny completely that the influenza virus affecting Mexico originated in pigs, because it has been scientifically demonstrated that this is not possible,' said a statement issued by the National Orginization of Pig production and Producers and it's president Mario Humberto Quintanilla Gonzalez...
"But the industry statement that this disease was not transmitted from pigs to people contadicts virtually all Mexican government statements so far, including Mexico's Health minister, Jose Angel Cordova, who said the virus, 'mutated from pigs, and then at some point was transmitted to humans.' Whether they were Mexican pigs or not remains a mystery of course... Mexican newspapers have been reporting for weeks that residents living near Granjas Carroll's massive hog facility at La Gloria are falling ill with severe upper respiratory diseases...
"According to an April 5 article in La Journada newspaper, 'Clouds of flies emanate from the lagoons where Granjas Carroll discharges the fecal waste from it's hog barns-as well as air pollution that has already caused an epidemic of respiratory infections in the town.' More than 400 people had already been treated for respiratory infections, and more than 60% of the town's 3,000 residents had reported getting sick, the paper said.
This is from the May 7, 2009 edition of The Wanderer
Tue May 12, 2009 5:59 pm
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