Meet Edgar Hernandez. He is believed to be the first victim of unsanitary practices by Smithfield Farms.
...The farm, (click title to entry - thank you) which raises a million pigs per year, is partially owned by Virginia-based Smithfield Foods, the largest pork producer in the United States. According to the Times, people living near the facility have long complained about the stench and the hordes of flies emanating from the operation’s manure lagoon.
Many area residents became sick with a respiratory disease in February. One of them, a four-year-old boy who has since recovered, was found to have had swine flu—the first recorded case.
For years, environmental groups have been warning that the viruses, bacteria, antibiotics, metals, oxygen-depleting substances, and other toxins in factory-farm wastewater posed a threat to public health....
By eating pork, the well established practices of pig farmers like those of Smithfield Farms are consented to, continuing to endanger the people of at least nine countries so far. I am confident the practices at this farm has not changed since the H1N1 outbreak.
