Pat’s Note: It is clear that the Canadian authorities have been caught again hiding vital information from the public gaze to protect their disease riddled pig industry and incompetent public servants.
Their pigs have Swine Flu and it has spread into people and they have been hiding it up for months.
That is the real story. They have known since early May.
We now know that their pigs have been seriously sick with circovirus since the mid 1990s and probably were the source of the British outbreaks in 1999.
The real story behind Britain’s infamous Swine Fever and Foot and Mouth outbreaks is unraveling on the Prairies.
http://www.cbc.ca/health/story/2009/07/20/swine-flu-inspectors-improper-gear-virus-calgary.html
Swine-flu inspectors wearing improper gear caught virus
Some staff wore ill-fitting respirators borrowed from firehall
Last Updated: Monday, July 20, 2009 | 8:45 PM ET
CBC News
Two CFIA staffers got sick a day after taking nasal and blood samples from pigs in a barn on this central Alberta farm. (CBC)
Federal government inspectors did not take proper precautions when investigating a swine-flu outbreak on a central Alberta pig farm, says a report obtained by CBC News.
Two workers for the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) subsequently got sick with the H1N1 virus, according to a report by Alberta Health Services.
The pair took nasal and blood samples from pigs on a farm near Rocky Mountain House for two hours on the night of April 28. The workers wore protective gear, but the report said they did not have the right equipment and were not shown proper procedures.
The full-face respirators available to them had not been fitted properly, and also fogged up their masks, making work difficult inside the hot barn.
'We acknowledge that in this particular case, all the proper protocols and procedures in place were not fully observed.'—Dr. Jim Clark, Canadian Food Inspection Agency
The two workers were not taught how to best put on or remove their coveralls, disposable shoe covers, double gloves or full-face respirator.
"They stated that they lifted their mask inside the barn to allow the sweat to drip down. They doffed their equipment without assistance, and the face mask was the first piece of equipment to be removed. Showers were not available on site," said the internal report.
The day after their work in the barn, the workers developed sore throats, followed by symptoms of cough, fatigue, sweats, and headache. Test results on May 7 confirmed the pair had contracted H1N1.
"We acknowledge that in this particular case, all the proper protocols and procedures in place were not fully observed," Dr. Jim Clark, national manager for disease control for CFIA's animal health division, told CBC News on Monday.
New procedures implemented
The report noted that once swine flu was confirmed in the herd, staff were given a full presentation by Health Canada on May 8 — 10 days after the two original staffers worked in the barn.
The procedures implemented after they got ill included:
• Properly fitted and sized full-face respirators with N95 filters.
• Eye protection with seals around the eyes.
• A trained staff member to assist with putting on, taking off gear.
• A maximum of two three-hour shifts to reduce fatigue, buildup of sweat.
It was also recommended that staffers get the seasonal flu vaccine as well as prescribed antivirals for those in contact with swine.
The report dated July 2 was based on interviews with 14 staff directly involved in the swine-flu outbreak investigation at the farm from April 28 to May 26.
They said prior to the change in procedures, three of the staff were using ill-fitting respirators borrowed from a firehall.
Staff noted that potentially exposed workers continued to work after exposure, possibly infecting other humans or animals, said the six-page report. They were also concerned they were not informed when their co-workers contracted H1N1.
Pigs culled on farm
Alberta Health Services, which commissioned the report to study effective protective strategies and to examine how to reduce the risk of infection to workers, did not fulfil requests by CBC News for an interview.
About 500 pigs were culled on a central Alberta farm near Rocky Mountain House in May. (CBC)
Clark said he was unaware of the AHS report until contacted by CBC News. He said the CFIA is conducting an internal investigation and is making changes to avoid a similar situation in the future.
About 500 hogs were culled on the Alberta pig farm on May 8, because the animals could not be sold. The animals had been under quarantine since April 28.
Swine flu is transmitted from animal to human mainly on pig farms where farmers and workers are in close contact with live pigs. The virus cannot be contracted through eating pork.
The spread of swine flu from human to human happens in the same way as seasonal flu, through coughing or sneezing.
Tuesday, 21 July 2009
Wednesday, 1 July 2009
MRSA - Pig Business - British TV Documentary
The documentary film "PIG BUSINESS" made with her own resources by the Marchioness of Worcester, Tracy Worcester, was screened last night on British TV.
Long delayed by the threat of legal action, Tracy’s film was a very pleasant surprise. She is a very capable film maker, personable and not at all cranky as a presenter.
It was a professional job. A lot of the material was a bit out of date and it was less gory than one would expect.
There were a number of themes in a very long documentary, but the main ones were:
“Big Business has been deliberately driving small farmers off the land.”
“Big pig farms are dangerous to human health.”
We did not agree with everything, nobody would, and Britain escaped much criticism that would have been justified.
Although critical of Smithfield, it was not anti-American in tone. You could screen this in the States, where much was set, with no problem apart from possibly Smithfield. Robert Kennedy Jnr played a prominent role – and about three republican presidents were quoted. Smithfield were interviewed on screen.
A MUST watch for everyone in Britain, America and Europe interested in industrial scale livestock production and the problems
The writer would add the following points of correction:
1. I do not think, in the absence of reliable information, thatt he antibiotics in manufactured pig feed were the major cause of "pig" MRSA. I believe the major cause from properly legally prescribed antibiotics to deal with the consequences of circovirus epidemics dating back to mutated circovirus (PMWS - PDNS etc from 1999 onwards.)
2. I believe that MRSA has been in British pigs for at least five years and that information has been deliberately withheld from public knowledge by Britain's agriculture ministry - Defra.
3. I do believe that Britain's vets, pig and pork workers should have been subject to "special" screening for MRSA on, or prior, to hospital entry, as well as routinely at place of employment.
Most regular readers here know all this well. One man can hardly have done more over many years to bring a disgraceful scandal to public attention.
Most of the details can be found on the newsgroup uk.business.agriculture - held offshore safe from British government tampering - accessible and searchable from Google Groups.
For those who missed the film the following is a transcript of the passages dealing with MRSA.
Transcript:
Tracy Worcester:
"Soon after this demonstration, new and disturbing reports appeared.
People could be in danger of getting the pig strain of MRSA, a bacterium which is resistant to antibiotics, similar to the human strain that kills several thousand people in British hospitals every year. The alleged culprit? The factory farming system, as farmer, Richard Young explained to me."
Richard Young, Policy Advisor, Soil Association:
"One of the big weaknesses in the system is their heavy dependence on antibiotics and the fact that causes infections which can spread from animals to humans, such as salmonella, e.coli and campylobacter and even MRSA and in the Netherlands, for example, where the most research has been undertaken, 40 per cent of their pigs are carrying the strain of MRSA that can pass to humans. It's been spread rapidly on the pigfarm because the antibiotics that have been put in the pig feed are actually selecting for it. That means they kill off the other bacteria which might provide some natural competition, but they don't kill off the MRSA because the MRSA is resistant. Meat which may appear very cheap is in fact, very, very expensive and in some cases that could be at the cost of our own lives."
Mark Enright, Prof. of Epidemiology, Imperial College:
"Because this strain's relatively common in other countries, it would be very surprising if this pig strain of MRSA wasn't in the UK and food chain and in the UK population. I think that's a fear that these animal strains, um, because we're selecting for them, we're using antibiotics in our animal populations and they can pick up resistance to antibiotics that we use in human health. In general, I don't think there's a great deal to be alarmed about. I would like,I think, to see farmers, certainly pig farmers, um, being offered testing for MRSA."
Long delayed by the threat of legal action, Tracy’s film was a very pleasant surprise. She is a very capable film maker, personable and not at all cranky as a presenter.
It was a professional job. A lot of the material was a bit out of date and it was less gory than one would expect.
There were a number of themes in a very long documentary, but the main ones were:
“Big Business has been deliberately driving small farmers off the land.”
“Big pig farms are dangerous to human health.”
We did not agree with everything, nobody would, and Britain escaped much criticism that would have been justified.
Although critical of Smithfield, it was not anti-American in tone. You could screen this in the States, where much was set, with no problem apart from possibly Smithfield. Robert Kennedy Jnr played a prominent role – and about three republican presidents were quoted. Smithfield were interviewed on screen.
A MUST watch for everyone in Britain, America and Europe interested in industrial scale livestock production and the problems
The writer would add the following points of correction:
1. I do not think, in the absence of reliable information, thatt he antibiotics in manufactured pig feed were the major cause of "pig" MRSA. I believe the major cause from properly legally prescribed antibiotics to deal with the consequences of circovirus epidemics dating back to mutated circovirus (PMWS - PDNS etc from 1999 onwards.)
2. I believe that MRSA has been in British pigs for at least five years and that information has been deliberately withheld from public knowledge by Britain's agriculture ministry - Defra.
3. I do believe that Britain's vets, pig and pork workers should have been subject to "special" screening for MRSA on, or prior, to hospital entry, as well as routinely at place of employment.
Most regular readers here know all this well. One man can hardly have done more over many years to bring a disgraceful scandal to public attention.
Most of the details can be found on the newsgroup uk.business.agriculture - held offshore safe from British government tampering - accessible and searchable from Google Groups.
For those who missed the film the following is a transcript of the passages dealing with MRSA.
Transcript:
Tracy Worcester:
"Soon after this demonstration, new and disturbing reports appeared.
People could be in danger of getting the pig strain of MRSA, a bacterium which is resistant to antibiotics, similar to the human strain that kills several thousand people in British hospitals every year. The alleged culprit? The factory farming system, as farmer, Richard Young explained to me."
Richard Young, Policy Advisor, Soil Association:
"One of the big weaknesses in the system is their heavy dependence on antibiotics and the fact that causes infections which can spread from animals to humans, such as salmonella, e.coli and campylobacter and even MRSA and in the Netherlands, for example, where the most research has been undertaken, 40 per cent of their pigs are carrying the strain of MRSA that can pass to humans. It's been spread rapidly on the pigfarm because the antibiotics that have been put in the pig feed are actually selecting for it. That means they kill off the other bacteria which might provide some natural competition, but they don't kill off the MRSA because the MRSA is resistant. Meat which may appear very cheap is in fact, very, very expensive and in some cases that could be at the cost of our own lives."
Mark Enright, Prof. of Epidemiology, Imperial College:
"Because this strain's relatively common in other countries, it would be very surprising if this pig strain of MRSA wasn't in the UK and food chain and in the UK population. I think that's a fear that these animal strains, um, because we're selecting for them, we're using antibiotics in our animal populations and they can pick up resistance to antibiotics that we use in human health. In general, I don't think there's a great deal to be alarmed about. I would like,I think, to see farmers, certainly pig farmers, um, being offered testing for MRSA."
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