Swine flu reaches pandemic level

During an emergency meeting held on Thursday, the World Health Organization (WHO) announced the escalation of the swine flu to the highest epidemic level 6, of global pandemic proportions. Speaking during a press briefing, WHO Assistant Director-General of Health, Security and Environment, Dr. Keiji Fukuda stated, “In terms of what we are seeing right now, we continue to see the spread of this virus evolve and we continue to see new countries report the virus, and we continue to see evolution of activity within countries.” Nations worldwide are now urged to gear themselves for widespread infection.

Currently, a total of more than 27,700 27,735 cases have been confirmed across 74 countries, with Colombia’s first declared fatality joining the United States, Canada, Mexico, Chile, Costa Rica, and Dominican Republic in raising the deaths from this illness to 141. Along with the sometimes deadly consequences of consuming animal products, which occur from bacterial infections as well as viruses like the swine flu, is the emotional toll that can be seen in people who live near large livestock operations.

Dr. Kendall Thu, an associate professor of anthropology at Northern Illinois University in the US recently spoke with Supreme Master Television about some of these less obvious consequences of meat and dairy consumption, which can include an increased sense of hopelessness leading to stress, tension and even humiliation.

Professor Kendall Thu – Associate Professor of Anthropology, Northern Illinois University, USA (M): I know of cases where children who board school buses from standing on the rural street corner waiting for the school bus to come, absorb the smell, and they're taunted on the bus once they get there because they smell terribly.

VOICE: Factory farm odors are more than just unpleasant; they can disrupt an entire town’s activities. Not only that, as Dr. Thu points out, consumers anywhere in the world buying the farms’ products are also implicated in the problem.

Professor Kendall Thu (M): I remember interviewing a pastor in North Carolina who lives next to a concentrated animal feeding operation (CAFO) and she was giving her sermon in church and then she suddenly realized she smelled something and it was herself. She absorbed the hog smell and she was so embarrassed within the church setting that she went home to change in order to continue with the sermon. So many of the social impacts are invisible to so many people who buy meat in the grocery store and don't realize that eating meat of this sort and being connected to this pathological system of meat production impacts directly the lives of people who work inside of them and who live near them.

VOICE: Professor Thu, we appreciate your research on the debilitating emotional toll of industrial farmed animal operations. We are thankful for the World Health Organization's careful monitoring and commitment to safeguarding public health. Our heartfelt sympathies for the minimizing of this illness and for those who have been afflicted by the swine flu, as we pray for the recovery of dignity and health to humans and animals alike through the life-sparing vegan diet.

Reference:
http://www.who.int/csr/don/2009_06_10a/en/index.html http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jTkkEKE5LtPih_5Jcc-3MpD0gOYQD98O1NF80

[CAFO INVESTIGATION] Firsthand experience of factory farms turns farmer vegetarian

Although she was raised in a meat-eating environment, Ms. Helen Reddout, cherry farmer and president of the Community Association for Restoration of the Environment (CARE) of Yakima Valley in Washington, USA explains that seeing the damage and abuse on industrial farms made her decide she could no longer support them, even in her daily life.

Helen Reddout – President of the Community Association for Restoration of the Environment (CARE) (F): I was definitely a “meat and potatoes” person, until on my trip to the market in Sunny Side, I had to pass by a dairy lot and a beef feedlot. By the time you drove the two miles down there, looking at how the animals were treated, and smelling the smells, and seeing the dust…sometimes so bad, coming off of those yards, that you had to actually turn your lights on in the middle of the day, it was that heavy. After a year or so of that, I began to think, being a part of buying these commodities is encouraging their operation.

VOICE: Ms. Reddout has not eaten any meat nor dairy for 20 years, and is still glad of her choice.

Helen Reddout (F): And to my surprise, it wasn’t very difficult at all. In fact my body kind of responded positively to it.

VOICE: Helen Reddout is part of a growing trend of people who, once confronted with the disturbing reality of raising animals, have decided that the best approach is a humane, more eco-friendly plant-based diet. Meanwhile, the swine flu, another byproduct of animal agriculture, has spread to such an extent that the World Health Organization (WHO) is expected to declare a pandemic within days.

With cases approaching 20,000 worldwide in 67 countries, some 120 people have lost their lives, with the more than 870 who have fallen ill fallen ill in Australia being the highest number outside of North America.

We thank you, Ms. Reddout and the Community Association for Restoration of the Environment, for your compassionate and intelligent choice of a meat-free existence. Our sorrow for those who have suffered loss through the swine flu and the devastating effects of animal farming operations as we also pray that people everywhere realize the health and mental security that comes from consuming a plant-based diet.

Reference:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1524225764500964289
http://www.upi.com/Top_News/2009/06/03/Woman-may-be-Vas-first-swine-flu-death/UPI-17451244070506/

Animal agriculture ruins dreams for indigenous Americans

The Yakama reservation in Washington, USA has been the ancestral home of the Native American Yakama tribe for hundreds of years. However, the recent nearby construction of a factory farm complex has turned their homeland and homes into prisons.

To understand the more widespread effects of animal farming operations on the people living nearby, Supreme Master Television recently met some of the residents who are forced to live with the reality of a factory farm environment.

(Interview in English)
Resident living near dairy factory farm (F): I live a fourth of a mile from a confined animal feeding operation (CAFO) and it’s really affected my family. I’ve been there a little over 20 years. It’s the flies, the smell, the dust, everything. We’re just trapped inside of our house. In days it stinks, we don’t turn the air conditioner on because the air comes in, we can’t open the windows.

VOICE: As is common for many people living near concentrated farming operations, when measurements were taken over the course of a week for the presence of ammonia from waste and other air pollutants at this resident’s home, the particle levels were so high that the measurements were off the scale.

Interviewee (F): Then the trucks, pulling that manure out, and then when they drive by they don’t cover it. So it’s on our road and when the cars drive by, it picks it up, and it is in the air. My kids only go outside once in a while when it’s nice. I always wanted to have a nice yard and have my kids outside, playing. But it’s not like that.

VOICE: As the animal farming operations take away the happiness from their neighbors, the most recent virus to have passed from farmed animals to humans continues to gain a foothold across the globe. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), confirmed cases of swine flu have risen close to 20,000 people who are now afflicted, including a first-ever case in Saudi Arabia, with 117 who have lost their lives, most recently in the countries of Mexico, US, Canada, and Chile. WHO interim assistant director-general for health security and environment, Keiji Fukuda, stated that if cases continue to spread, the agency may declare a pandemic, the highest alert level.

We thank the World Health Organization and all other organizations working to alleviate the swine flu as we pray for the victims of this worrying trend, especially loved ones in mourning.

Our sorrow too for the unwilling neighbors of factory farms as well, and pray that the practice of animal farming will soon cease altogether, so that all may enjoy health and life to the fullest.