Content from Avaaz.org, but same information available from the Humane Society.

Dear friends,

H1N1, more commonly known as swine flu, continues to dominate global dialogue — Mexico has been nearly paralysed and across the world leaders discouraged air travel, banned pork imports and initiated drastic controls to mitigate the spreading virus. As the threat shows signs of subsiding, the question becomes where it came from and how we stop another outbreak.

Smithfield Corporation, the largest pig producer in the world whose farm is being blamed as the source of the H1N1 outbreak, denies any connection between their pigs and the flu. Big agribusiness worldwide pays huge sums of money for research to argue that biosafety is ensured in industrial hog production. But the World Health Organization has been saying for years that ‘a new pandemic is inevitable’ and experts from the European Commission and the Fod and Agriculture Organization have cautioned that the rapid move from small holdings to industrial pig production is in fact increasing the risk of development and transmission of epidemics. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warn that scientists still do not know the extent that infectious compounds produced in factory farms affect human health.

Studies abound of the horrific conditions endured by pigs in concentrated large-scale operations, and the devastating economic impact on small farmer communities of bloated large-scale operations. Smithfield itself has already been fined $12.6 million and is currently under another federal investigation in the US for toxic environmental damage from pig excrement lakes.

But even with all of this damaging evidence, a combination of increased global meat consumption and a powerful industry motivated by profit at the cost of human health, means that instead of being shut down – these sickening factory farm operations are propagating around the world and we are subsidizing them. In the wake of this swine flu threat, let’s hold industrial pig producers to account. Sign the petition for investigation and regulation:

http://www.avaaz.org/en/swine_flu_pandemic/50.php

If we resolve this global health crisis boldly by reassessing our food consumption and production, and urgently calling for an inquiry into the impact of factory farms on human health, we could put in place tough farm practice rules that will save the global population from future animal-borne lethal pandemics.

http://www.avaaz.org/en/swine_flu_pandemic/50.php

With hope,

the Avaaz team