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GlobalResearch TV
A Global Research Video Production
8:10 minutes
Copyright: Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG), Montreal, 2009.
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Is it the “Mexican Flu”, the “Swine Flu” or the “Human Flu”?
What are the origins of the pandemic?
– by Michel Chossudovsky – 2009-05-04
The WHO announced on May 1st that it will be dropping the designation of “swine flu”. The flu will henceforth be designated A H1N1, to be known more broadly as “the Mexican Flu”, intimating that the disease originated in Mexico through human to human transmission
Swine influenza refers to “strains of influenza virus, that usually infect pigs”. The terminology, therefore, is important, because if the pandemic is labelled “Mexican flu”, the presumption is that Mexicans, namely humans, are the source of the disease.
The term “Swine Flu’, on the contrary, suggests that the pigs, at least initially, transmit the virus to humans, and, therefore, the issue of animal health must also be addressed.
The news reports have largely focussed on the transmission from humans to humans. They have failed to address the abysmal environmental and health conditions affecting the hog population in factory farms, which are central to an understanding of two fundamental processes:
a) the proliferation of the disease within the hog factory farms.
b) the process of transmission of the virus from pigs to humans.
The swine flu can be transmitted from pigs to humans under very specific circumstances, invariably to people working in hog farms who are exposed on a daily basis to the pigs. Scientists are unequivocal: “People who work with pigs, especially people with intense exposures, are at risk of catching swine flu.”
Swine influenza is an acute, highly contagious, respiratory disease that results from infection with type A influenza virus. Field isolates of variable virulence exist, and clinical manifestation may be determined by secondary organisms. Pigs are the principal hosts of classic swine influenza virus. (Human infections have been reported, but porcine strains of influenza A do not appear to easily spread in the human population. … The disease in swine occurs commonly in the Midwestern USA (and occasionally in other states), Mexico, Canada, South America, Europe (including the UK, Sweden, and Italy), Kenya, China, Japan, Taiwan, and other parts of eastern Asia.(The Merck Veterinarian Manual)
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Is it the “Mexican Flu”, the “Swine Flu” or the “Human Flu”?
What are the origins of the pandemic?
– by Michel Chossudovsky – 2009-05-04
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