The Path of a Pandemic

Newsweek ^ | 5/2/2009 | Laurie Garrett

[Born Conservative]

How one virus spread from pigs and birds to humans around the globe. And why microbes like the H1N1 flu have become a growing threat.

Around Thanksgiving 2005 a teenage boy helped his brother-in-law butcher 31 pigs at a local Wisconsin slaughterhouse, and a week later the 17-year-old pinned down another pig while it was gutted. In the lead-up to the holidays the boy's family bought a chicken and kept the animal in their home, out of the harsh Sheboygan autumn. On Dec. 7, the teenager came down with the flu, suffering an illness that lasted three days. He visited a local clinic, then fully recovered, and nobody else in his family took ill.

This incident would hardly seem worth mentioning except that the influenza virus that infected the Wisconsin lad was unlike any previously seen. It appeared to be a mosaic of a wild-bird form of flu, a human type and a strain found in pigs.

It was an H1N1 swine influenza. Largely ignored at the time, the Wisconsin virus was a step along the evolutionary tree, leading to a virus that four years later would stun the world.

Flash-forward to April 2009, and young Édgar Enrique Hernández in faraway La Gloria, Mexico, suffers a bout of flu, found to be caused by a similar mosaic of swine/bird/human flu, also H1N1. And thousands of miles away in Cairo, the Egyptian government decides pigs are the source of disease, and orders 300,000 animals in the predominantly Muslim (therefore not pork-consuming) society slaughtered.

Each of these three incidents is related to the unfolding influenza crisis. It is the manner of human beings to seek blame during times of fear. Fingers are now pointing, either at the entire pig species Sus domestica, or at the nation of Mexico.

[Born Conservative]

Ping

[HiTech RedNeck]

Around Thanksgiving 2005 a teenage boy helped his brother-in-law butcher 31 pigs at a local Wisconsin slaughterhouse, and a week later the 17-year-old pinned down another pig while it was gutted. In the lead-up to the holidays the boy's family bought a chicken and kept the animal in their home, out of the harsh Sheboygan autumn. On Dec. 7, the teenager came down with the flu, suffering an illness that lasted three days. He visited a local clinic, then fully recovered, and nobody else in his family took ill.

The revenge of the ham and eggs

[Palladin]

They keep chickens in the house in Sheboygan?

Who knew?

[Born Conservative]

It’s interesting that this is part avian, part swine, and part human influenza virus.

[HiTech RedNeck]

That was one pampered pullet.

[Smokin' Joe]

Ping...

[DHSMostWanted]

I do not like Green Eggs and Ham, I do not like them Sam I Am.

[HiTech RedNeck]

Ya gotta wonder if this was the spot where it all came together.

[piytar]

Passable read, but it is from Newspeak (ref Orwell), so it carries no serious weight...

[goodnesswins]

Uh huh...oookay....

[MrEdd]

You misspelled Newsweak.

[BerryDingle]

Man chicken pig?

[SatinDoll]

This sounds like pure fiction; a tale made up to explain what is happening now.

I doubt Newsweek could prove this in a court of law.

[kaila]

Your link goes to a Newsweek article about why we should insure illegals.
I passed on reading it ,I was afraid I would spew my dinner.

[Will88]

Newsweek knows all this almost four years later? Sounds like a made up scenario.

[Rocketwolf68]

They pick on rural wisconsinites; my friend was forced to slaughter all the animals on his game farm because they “suspected” his animals “might” have come in contact with other diseased Cwd deer.

[AAABEST]

I do not like Green Eggs and Ham, I do not like them Sam I Am.

Would you eat them in a house?

Would you eat them with a mouse?

[neverdem]

thanks, bfl

[bethybabes69]

The link's broken, but from the excerpt, the one vital thing missing from relating this to swine flu is the demographics base of the recombinant strains, it seems this is written to offer shallow platitude with no factual substance.

Reads like a statement from a criminal trying blag their way out of something they're guilty of.