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Swine Influenza

post #1 of 11
4/28/09 at 1:43pm
Thread Starter 
Swine Flu!

Here we go again, more problems in the food Chain.
Smithfield Foods seems to be bearing the brunt of this. MSNBC has said that it it believed to have started there for the U.S version.
The price of pork is going to go down bigtime.
It was said and I quote " We have the laws to protect us from every contaminated product.But no one in the Food Farm Factories seem to adhere to them and certainly the USDA does not enforce them..
In another article Grass fed cattle and animals that traditionally fed in the fields and in the wild on grass are now force fed corn to fatten them up in the name of profit. This could be cutting down their resistance to disease and foster new E-Coli strains.:mad:
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post #2 of 11
4/28/09 at 2:28pm
You can't get infected by the H1N! virus (aka swine flu) from handling, eating, or otherwise associating with (eww!) pork. Transmission is entirely by human to human contact. The drop in pork value is the result of human to human ignorance. And if anyone knows ignorance, it's me.

Hey wait,
BDL
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post #3 of 11
4/28/09 at 6:34pm
FYI for everyone, Smithfeild has nothing to do with this, the web site that leaked this is a well known black helicopter type conspiracy theorist web site. Before this gets out of control Smithfield has already filed a suit against the domain owners and has filed an injunction against all the news networks to stop the spreading of the info. That is info I have heard directly from ppl at Smithfield.
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post #4 of 11
4/29/09 at 4:23am
Thread Starter 
BDL. A doctor I am not, but according to what I see on TV and papers it seems to be traced back to a pig farm in Vera Cruz.
I know its not by injesting but could not cross contamination be applied to this like salmonella///?
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post #5 of 11
4/29/09 at 4:39am
put your money where your mouth is and buy SFD at these levels... the stock is off by ~9%, if youre right it should be trading back above 10.00.
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post #6 of 11
4/29/09 at 5:09am
I wish I had the cash to do it, becasue if I did I would. Took quite the beating already this year and am looking for ways to make it back...:mad:
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post #7 of 11
4/29/09 at 6:01am
That may be the initial location of the outbreak but as BDL has noted the real problem now is the ability of this virus to move human to human. The virus that is now affecting people is a combination virus with elements of avian flu, swine flu and human flu according to what I am reading. This is not really a food chain issue.
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post #8 of 11
4/29/09 at 7:58am
Thread Starter 
Correct me if I am wrong as I am not a doctor or chemist. ., But A.I.D.S. which is viral in orgin, supposidly was started by mans contact with monkeys or beastality as some researchers believe , then it was spread from human to human in a chain like effect. Could not this swine flu started in the same way ,and then spread in the same manner?:eek:.:eek:
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post #9 of 11
4/29/09 at 8:15am
The problem with a virus like swine flu is that it did make the jump from animal to human. It probably made this jump because of close proximity to pigs that develop swine flu all year round. Mayb a pig snorted (they do that you know) and a human ingested the spray. Or maybe just the close contact. Many of these people sleep with their animals, and therefore come in contact with the bodily fluids and excrement of the infected pig.

Once a stain has made the jump to humans, it mutates. It mutates in the swine too. Perhaps a certain mutation in the swine, made it possible for it to infect a human. Human virus transmission, something like as in AIDS, is from bodily fluid ingestion. Someone sneezes or coughs, and you breath in the virus. Or you touch a contaminated surface by someone who had the virus on their hand, and then you touch your eyes, mouth or nose. Now you've ingested it. Some viruses live longer on surfaces than others. Thankfully the AIDS virus doesn't survive long outside the body. The swine flu virus is much more hardy.

That is why it is recommended to wash your hands frequently. This is two-fold. If you have the virus on your hands, you wash it off and prevent others from picking it up. If you've picked it up, then you wash it off so you too won't ingest it.

Covering your mouth when you sneeze or cough, doesn't really protect you yourself, its the other person who might be infected protecting you by limiting the spray of virus through the act of containing their coughing or sneezing preferably with a tissue and not just their hand. But it is also recommended that whenever you or they cough or sneeze, go wash the hands immediately.

Anyway, the worst thing is, just like the dastardly horrible Spanish flu epidemic of 1918 or thereabouts, is that it started I think with a fairly mild outbreak. Then there was a short period of time before it re-emerged in a deadly form that it is estimated killed 50-100 million people world wide. This is because that particular mutation had never appeared before, and people did not have any immunity against it. Sort of like the Aztecs when the Spanish arrived with all their European diseases that the Aztecs had no immunity to.

There was another pandemic in 1957 and another in I think 1964 or thereabouts, that killed 1-2 million people worldwide.

As an added note, there have already been thousands of deaths since January from the regular flu season this year that had nothing to do with this new swine flu variant!

doc
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post #10 of 11
4/29/09 at 8:19am
Thread Starter 
Thanks Doc. You answered my question
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post #11 of 11
4/29/09 at 11:47am
Price of pork is down! So..., is this a good time to open a BBQ joint? :lol:

-or can I finally get the organic pig farmers to quote me a realistic price for hanging weight? -pfftt, when pigs fly! .....oh, wait, -the swine flew!


Sorry, couldn't resist.
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