Evidence points to industrial pig farm as source of outbreak, Bernice Wuethrich tried to warn us.
It's been 15 years since the North American Free Trade Agreement, and while debate still rages over the wisdom of the arrangement, the recent swine flu outbreak threatens to bring the pact under sharp criticism. Mounting evidence is pointing to a US-owned industrial pig farm as a likely source of the swine flu virus. The farm is one of many factory farms that set up shop in Mexico after NAFTA rearranged the laws to make such moves more profitable. Many experts have been warning for years about the potential for a swine flu pandemic to arise out of the conditions present in industrial pig farms.
BIO: Bernice Wuethrich is the Vice-President for Global Health and Science at Burness Communications, a public relations firm for non-profit organizations. She works intermittently as a freelance science writer, having contributed to Science, New Scientist, Discover, and others. She worked previously in exhibit development at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History.
