Health officials have found no connection between the pig farms, owned and operated by Virginia-based Smithfield Foods, and the flu virus that paralyzed Mexico for much of the past two weeks. But the crisis, which appears to be abating, has inflamed tensions between the world’s largest hog producer and the poor neighboring communities here that have long warned that the farms are a danger to their health.
“To the people of this community, what brought about this problem was the pig farms,” said Guillermo Franco Vázquez, the mayor of Perote, a county seat that has 22 farming communities, including La Gloria, in its jurisdiction. “To clear up this myth — or to confirm it as reality — we need more studies.”
Mexicans Blame Industrial Hog Farms: But Health Officials Have Found No Link to Recent Flu Outbreak
