Friday, June 12, 2009

Pig farm to be sued over flu?

This story is from last month, but I wasn't able to get to it then. I haven't seen any new developments in this story since then.

The husband of a pregnant Texas woman who died in the ongoing swine flu pandemic has filed a legal petition to see if the operators of the factory pig farm in Mexico where the flu spread from are responsible for her death.

There should be no doubts that they are. This should be almost an open-and-shut case. When you run factory farms that are too crowded and full of large lagoons of animal feces, it's almost a given that disease will spread.

It's not as if the U.S. factory farms where swine flu previously originated are blameless. I'll go a step further: I believe there should be criminal charges against public officials who have helped deregulate factory farms.

Health officials claimed there was no connection between the flu outbreak and the factory farm in Mexico. This is patently false. Nearby residents have long linked the farm to a host of ailments. It was so bad at one point that government officials had to shut down the town to spray for swarms of flies.

When somebody allows conditions that spread disease, that makes them responsible for what happens.

(Source: http://www.brownsvilleherald.com/news/woman-97913-dies-filed.html)

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