"Swine flu should be called H1N1 flu. Swine flu is misleading label. It is a not a food borne illness. Eat your pork."-- Paraphrasing Tom Vilsack
Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack is a former Governor from Iowa. Iowa is the nation's largest pork producing state and has been for decades, even before Edward Bernays. Edward Bernays was Sigmund Freud's nephew and worked to increase sales for one pork company in the 1920's and ended up increasing sales of pork across the spectrum. Edward also promoted tobacco, bananas and fluoridation of municipal water. Smithfield Foods is the world's biggest pork Corp. today.
Since the outbreak of the swine flu in the Mexico City area near Smithfield Foods swine farms, Tom Vilsack has consistently stated the swine flu should not be called swine flu because it negatively impacts the pork market. The virus has also been theorized to be a mix of avian, swine and human flu and, as Tom proposes, the swine flu is a biased label negatively impacting pork sales and families that depend on the pork business.  Other scientists propose it is made up of a combination of two types of swine flu. Â
People currently aren't eating as much pork because the think it is a food borne illness. Tom states that it is not a food borne illness and one cannot get swine flu, or H1N1 as he would rather it be called, from eating cooked swine. Of course mishandling of pork at all could get one sick in one way or another.Â
The fact of the matter is that swine flu is not known to be a food borne illness, but is most likely a fecal borne illness, fecal matter from raising swine that eventually becomes food. The food may be alright if cooked enough and handled properly, the fecal matter from the pigs that become food is the likely problem. Tom is not lying in stating that food has nothing to do with swine flu, he never said that agricultural practices, the raising of food is not responsible. Swine flu might more accurately be called H1N1 or in laymen's terms, fecal flu.Â
Smithfield Foods raises almost a million swine a year near Mexico City, where the outbreak of fecal flu seems to have originated. Standard operating procedure for Smithfield Foods and other corporate hog houses worldwide is to store the swine waste of sorts into untreated, open air crap lagoons.Â
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The fact is pork is not as sickening as the corporate practices of raising pork in concentrate animal feeding operations (CAFO). The food in itself is fine for some. It is the crap lagoons resulting from raising mass quantities of swine that endangered surrounding communities of the lagoons and now, possibly the world.
The lagoons are open air Petri dishes, for not only is swine excrement and blood drained into the lagoons, but drugs, syringes, gloves, stillborns and piglets all get mixed up into the often pinkish sludge. Add heat, let settle and toss in some of nature's chaos and that might be enough for H1N1, fecal flu.Â
So eat your pork, Tom Vilsack says, as did Edward Bernays, the author of Engineering Consent and Propaganda. Well cooked pork is fine for some, it is where the pork comes from that is the problem for, perhaps, all. These practices do not just occur in Mexico, throughout the U.S.A. crap lagoons exist. In some areas the stench is so overwhelming people pass out when outside and many experience perpetual ailments. (Rolling Stone, December 14, 2006)
The new flu is out and likely caused by corporate agriculture practices, mainly related to raising swine and pooling their waste into open air lagoons. The food one eats is healthy or as healthy as pork could be, but the agricultural practices are sickening.Â
Boycott corporate pork, toss it overboard. Buy organic swine if you must constantly eat the beast in order to eliminate crap lagoons, at least just temporarily. Even if the crap lagoons are not responsible for the swine flu, it is an abhorrent practice people complain about and suffer under from Iowa to Mexico and beyond. The practice makes fresh water rancid, kills fish and destroys whole environments. Fecal flu is another, perhaps more affronting, result of corporate agricultural practices.
