Solve Climate: Swine Flu Raises More Questions About Industrial Livestock Production

Primate Diaries: Priming the Pump of a Swine Flu Pandemic

Grist: Jumping to Conclusions in Health Matters may have Adverse Side Effects

High Plains Journal: Swine Flu Causing Sweating and Nausea in Washington, D.C.

BBC: Egypt Presses Ahead with Pig cull

Democracy Now: The “NAFTA Flu”: Critics Say Swine Flu Has Roots in Forcing Poor Countries to Accept Western Agribusiness (video below)

Several political dynamics are running immediately beneath the surface of news coverage of the swine flu outbreak. First and foremost, the confirmation of Kathleen Sebelius as Health and Human Services Secretary is being held up by GOP Senators because she is – GASP – pro-choice. More importantly, a growing chorus of bloggers and Mexican media outlets are pointing to an American-based company, Smithfield, as 50% owner of the Mexican farm where the swine flu is believed to have originated.

Sebelius Confirmation as Health and Human Services Secretary

This story will receive significant attention today as the Senate prepares to vote sometime in the afternoon or evening. Joe Sudbay has the text of the unanimous consent agreement, which indicates that we could see a vote by 6pm today. Sudbay’s critique of the GOP obstructionism on this is a thing of beauty. SEIU has a petition running and I’m assuming that won’t be all we’ll hear from them on this. Greg Sargent has a bit of a back and forth between spokespeople for Senators Reid and McConnell, and his conclusion hits the mark: “The filibuster over an abortion controversy is still throwing a hurdle in the way of this nomination, despite the flu epidemic.”

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Check out the EnviroKnow Swine Flu Page for more information.

U.S. Declares Public Health Emergency Over Swine Flu :

Responding to what some health officials feared could be the leading edge of a global pandemic emerging from Mexico, American health officials declared a public health emergency on Sunday as 20 cases of swine flu were confirmed in this country, including eight in New York City.

Top global flu experts struggled to predict how dangerous the new A (H1N1) swine flu strain would be as it became clear that they had too little information about Mexico’s outbreak — in particular how many cases had occurred in what is thought to be a month before the outbreak was detected, and whether the virus was mutating to be more lethal, or less.

Swine Flu Outbreak linked to Smithfield Factory Farms 11:

Is Smithfield Foods, the world’s largest pork packer and hog producer, linked to the outbreak? Smithfield operates massive hog-raising operations Perote, Mexico, in the state of Vera Cruz, where the outbreak originated. The operations, grouped under a Smithfield subsidiary called Granjas Carrol, raise 950,000 hogs per year, according to the company Web site—a level nearly equal to Smithfield’s total U.S. hog production.

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12:34 P.M. EDT

MR. GIBBS: Good afternoon, guys. Thank you for taking some time out of your Sunday afternoon. We wanted to bring together many of the people that have the primary governmental responsibility in dealing with the situation and to discuss the government’s capacity and capability to discuss the steps the government is taking to address this.

Three people we’ll hear from today and then we’ll take some questions: First, John Brennan, Assistant to the President for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism; Dr. Richard Besser, the Acting Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and Janet Napolitano, the Secretary of Homeland Security.

So with that I’ll turn it over to Mr. Brennan.

MR. BRENNAN: Thank you, Robert. And thank you, everyone, for coming here today.
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