Big Meat
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Smithfield brings home McDonald’s corporate responsibility prize
Larry Pope“Oh, my goodness. I think I’m extremely proud of — of how we are from a corporate social responsibility standpoint. And, in fact, McDonald’s just gave us their first award as the most — for their corporate social responsibility. The fist time they’ve given that, they gave it to us.” –Larry Pope, CEO of […]
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CDC: swine flu strain has genetic roots in U.S.A.
(Another hat tip to the increasingly essential Tom Laskawy.) In an interview with Science Magazine, CDC chief virologist Ruben Donis essentially confirmed the reading of the current swine flu strain made by New Scientist: that it evolved from a strain that cropped up in U.S. hog farms in 1998. Both New Scientist and Donis emphasize […]
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Smithfield is listening!
What’s that you say? Smithfield claims that they are awaiting the results of “additional” tests on the pigs at their Veracruz, Mexico, CAFO — the facility at the heart of speculation here on Grist and elsewhere as the source of the current swine flu outbreak — to determine if any pigs are infected. And just […]
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‘New Scientist’: Swine flu stems from virus that evolved in U.S.
In a pair of articles in New Scientist, Debora MacKenzie links the swine flu virus now spreading across the globe to large-scale pork-raising operations in the United States. In the first article, titled “Swine flu: the predictable pandemic?,” MacKenzie writes that the “virus has been a serious pandemic threat for years, New Scientist can reveal […]
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Symptom: swine flu. Diagnosis: industrial agriculture?
Several days after news broke of a possible link between Mexico-based hog CAFOs and the rapid spread of a novel swine-flu strain, what have we learned? • Clarifying details about respiratory ailments in the Perote area of Vera Cruz State — where U.S. pork behemoth Smithfield Foods raises nearly a million hogs a year in […]
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Swine-flu outbreak could be linked to Smithfield factory farms
One flu east, one flu westThe outbreak of a new flu strain — a nasty mash-up of swine, avian, and human viruses — has infected 1,000 people in Mexico and the U.S., killing 68. The World Health Organization warned Saturday that the outbreak could reach global pandemic levels. Is Smithfield Foods, the world’s largest pork […]
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Chinese agribiz giant eyes Smithfield takeover
Want some Chinese dollar reserves in that ration? Like a pig pumped full of antibiotics, gorged on corn, soy, and industrial byproducts, and stuffed into a room with thousands of its peers huddled over a lagoon of their own waste, the U.S. meat industry is feeling a bit haggard just right now. Like many U.S. […]
