I'm sorry, but petitions are nearly worthless in THIS country, what exactly is a petition going to do in some other country? Never mind that Mexico isn't exactly known for being sympathetic to the people's needs.

It is good to sign the petition, and factory farming might well have contributed to this. However, this sort of thing has happened for thousands of years and this will not prevent it, that is way too strongly put. South China, where chickens, pigs and people all live in close contact cheek by jowl by fowl.....so to speak , anyway that has been the source of many new strains. The bird factor can give the virus wings to spread fast and wide.

Factory animal farming is a huge problem for a lot of reasons though, and this is definitely one of them.

Yeah, this is so much BS.

First off, the problem with pigs is that they carry both the human and the bird versions. They are unique in this way. H1N1 was able to mutate because of this simple fact.

Second off, in America, this is not a problem with the swine facilities. You can read the research that has been going on about this from the USDA Wildlife Services division, if you were so inclined. In that research, it clearly showed that large, commercial swine facilities were a lot safer and cleaner than smaller ones and had sufficient biohazard safety protocols to keep feral hogs (which are not endemic to this side of the globe by the way) away from the commercial hogs. The smaller facilities, (and Billy Joe Jim Bob's 4-6 piggies in the backyard) are not safe from interaction with those feral hogs. Feral hogs also don't care about national borders, much like the illegals.

Now, factor in free ranging feral hogs coming up from Mexico (a place well known for it's filth and poor health practices), no health screening at the border for ANYONE coming up from Mexico, illegal or not, and of course the air travel in those lovely planes with recycled air.

Now also consider that over 10,000 people die from regular influenza in the US alone every year. People are freaking out over a relatively none issue and it's hilarious. Now in Mexico and other countries full of polluted water and poor health practices, you will see this being a huge issue. With unfettered travel in many countries, this virus easily spreads, but all you have to do is wash your hands and follow proper health practices. The young and the old will still be vulnerable, but then, they always are.


Instead of crying out for a ridiculous petition which most likely has to a connection to Peta in the basement, try pushing for better treatment of Mexican citizen's by their government and pushing for their government to start cleaning their country up, for once.

There is a very strong argument that all of our drug resistant infections were begun and bred in agriculture.

In agriculture antibiotics are used like steroids to boost metabolism and catabolism and increase bulk.
There are only so many antibiotics in existence. Al are cultured in biological fermentors. The real difference from one to the other end product is the processing they go through. But they are still founded on a very few strains of molds, bacteria, and fungi.

In agriculture the opportunity exists to have all manner of infectious diseases exposed constantly to a whole battery of antibiotics breeding diseases that will evolve resistance to those antibiotics.

Humans misusing antibiotics constitute a sub-microscopic portion in the universe of antibiotic misuse that breeds drug resistant strains.