swine flu 1999

 

Large_Swine Flu_001 Sorry for the lapse in posts. I know you missed us and were wondering what was happening in the world of food and faith. Well, things have been hopping with new legislation around agricultural aid to Africa coming out of the Senate and the State Department soon (more on that later), and the swine flu virus–as seen above through a microscope–popping up here and there around the planet. Thought you would be interested to know the following, kindly noted by Virginia, coordinator extraordinaire of the Sustainable Agriculture and Food Systems Funders –

 

We Were Warned

May 3, 2009 by David Kirby

In researching my upcoming book on factory farming for St. Martins Press, I have come across many warnings from our past about the looming threat of pandemic influenza emerging from large-scale hog operations.  It now appears that six of the eight genetic components in the currently circulating virus are direct descendants of a swine flu virus that first emerged in North Carolina a decade ago. That bug was discovered in August 1998, at a 2,400-head breeding facility in Newton GroveNC, where all the sows suddenly came down with a phlegmatic cough. Pregnant animals spontaneously aborted their litters. (read the article)