[Warning: some links contain images of strong graphic content]

I've intended to write this post for quite a while now; I tried during this time to find a way to encapsulate my thoughts in an elegant and intelligible manner, that would do justice to the subject at hand. Alas, I must accept my limitations, and just write what's on my head.

This next Sunday —July the 5th— Mexico will celebrate the elections to select the members of Congress, as well as the members of the states' local congress and the municipal presidents.

Usually, these sort of elections don't bring too much attention —not like the presidential elections, anyway. But now things have changed: a new interesting development has surfaced that has spawned quite a bit of controversy.

This new development is a call to annul the vote. And it was quickly disseminated and promoted thanks to the most powerful political instrument the world has ever known: the Internet.

Several blogs and Youtube videos quickly appeared and were sent to e-mail accounts, calling the citizens to either leave their ballots empty, to strike the entire ballot with a big cross, or to write the name of a fictional candidate —someone like Withered Hope, for example (more on that later).

Soon enough, the newspapers and the TV networks began to talk about this new movement. Who were these people calling for a boycott of the electoral process? What did they want? What party or secret organization was supporting it under the table and to what end?

The answer was both simple and startling: the 'annulist', as they were now being called, were no one but simple good-natured citizens that were tired and fed-up with the way the political class conducted their business. They were angry to see that the politicians were completely incapable of reaching agreements with other parties, except when it involved calling for a raise in their salaries and economic benefits. They were annoyed of the constant bombardment of stupid political ads attacking from every front —the streets, newspapers, radio & TV— that cost millions of dollars (yes, DOLLARS) and yet say nothing but empty promises and silly jingles. They were disappointed that, after 9 years of the so-called "new Democracy" in which the country was now living, nothing fundamental had really changed; from the old days when we were governed by the "Revolutionary family" (the PRI) and the government functioned under the premise of an absolutist Presidentialism, to the new savage multi-party olligarchy, the only palpable change was that there were more hands eager to grab a slice of the pie... nothing more.

Not surprisingly, the representatives of the parties began to decry and ridicule the call to annul the votes. They launched attacks and counter attacks: the parties from the left denounced the ruling party from the right of being behind the movement, and the right-side parties accused the left of the same thing; they warned the citizens that a blank or annulled vote didn't carry any particular weight in the election's outcome, according to the current laws; that the message they intended to send would not be clear enough; and lastly, that a vote annulled would be like giving a blank check to the old PRI, that would surely used their old dirty tricks to buy enough votes to reclaim the power they —seemingly— lost after they lost the Presidency in 2000.

Even the Catholic church began to condemn the movement! So you see, when you have ALL the members of the top hyerarchy scared, then you know you must be on the right track...

On Friday June 5th —exactly one month before the day of the election— a letter I wrote was published on the Reforma newspaper, and included on the special section of the first pages. To my disappointment though, it was heavily edited; so here I'm including the translation of the uncensored version of my letter (the text in bold marks the edited paragraphs):

A Second PRI?

Several political & social actors are raising their voice against those citizen movements promoting the annulled or blank vote.

Some of them are warning us that an annulled vote is automatically translated into a vote supporting the PRI, which still relies on its old methods of the "hard" or corporative vote.

Recently our First Lady, Doña Margarita Zavala, invited us all to vote for the PAN so it could achieve a majority in Congress, which would enable it —they say— to finally unblock the political, fiscal & energetic reforms that our nation so desperately needs .

So, the ruling party (PAN) acknowledges that the only way to overcome the lack of consensus and the poor disposition to reach agreements in the echelons of power, is through an absolute control that overshadows any attempt to block the decisions made by the Executive branch.

But then again; doesn't this sound exactly like the way the PRI used to operate before the power switch of 2000?

Is it just that the only way to finally defeat the PRI is... with A SECOND PRI?

Sorry, but I just don't buy it anymore. And since I am sick & tired of the multi-party olligarchy making us believe that they are the undisputable owners of the game board —since they are the ones that have ruled illegal the candidacy of independent citizens— and therefore we have no choice but to play by THEIR rules, I join those who say "No", and for the moment my candidate in the next elections will be Withered Hope.

It is very likely that annulling our vote next July will be nothing more than a symbolic act. But in the history of the world, all great changes always begin in such a manner; and it is always the people —not the rulers— the ones who infuse POWER to symbols.

Miguel Romero

...Yes, I admit it: I was in a Fawkes-like state of mind at the time ;-)

That very same day I read an awesome editorial written by Jacobo Zabludowsky —Zabludowsky is arguably the most important Mexican newsman of the last decades; if we were to compare him with someone, think Walter Cronkite, and this is NOT and exxageration— supporting the annullist movement. Here's a brief excerpt from that article:

Let it be observed that [the annulled vote] is not the same as an abstention. It is a form, a legal way —because it's not forbidden— to cast a vote. It is a vote that express a will to inffluence in order to change. They [the government] will declare it null. That's the point. This declaration will become the birth certificate of a manifestation that, no matter how small, no one will be able to ignore. It will be registered in the acts. We are voting. We are the ones of the annulled vote. We have no shepherd for we are not sheep. We are the neighbors of September 19th, 1985

Not only that, but the next weekend my sister informed me that she had heard the radio program of Don Jacobo that last Friday, and he mentioned and praised my printed letter! Ho cool is that?? :-D

You guys might be wondering, what's with that date Sept 19 1985? Well, it happens to be a very important date in the modern history of Mexico; for that is the date when we suffered the big one: a 8.1 monster earthquake that toppled dozens of buildings, and decimated the lives of thousands of innocent civilians. And the relevance of that date is not because of the natural catastrophe, but because of what the catastrophe provoked: while the government was still confused and still trying to find their dicks inside their pants, it was the citizens that got organized and conducted most of the rescue operations; volunteers that bravely donated their time and even risked their lives in the desperate effort to liberate the few survivors trapped among the rubble, that toiled fr hours without rest, sweating, crying and laughing when they worked the miracle of giving a fellow human a second birth from the bowels of the earth.

It is my opinion that two events determined the social transition that ensued the arrival of Democracy in Mexico: 1 was the massacre at Tlatelolco in 1968, because it showed just how far the ruling class was willing to go in order to preserve their grip on the nation. The other was the earthquake on 1985, because it showed us that we can show solidarity and accomplish great things without the supervision of the government —it showed us just how useless they really are.

It is my hope and belief that a third event is coming. And it will begin next Sunday, when a small but significant portion of the citizens cast their vote as a sign of protest and a demand for true change.

We do not kid ourselves; we know that this is but the first of many steps, but to let things as they are is to concede defeat. We know that we desserve better.

I cannot end this post without mentioning a very interesting link between Art & the real world in this story. I'm talking about a book written by the Nobel laureate José Saramago in 2004, Ensaio sobre a Lucidez (Essay about Lucidity); a novel that deals with a nameless city in which most of the citizens cast a blank vote in the elections, provoking the fear & indignation in the highest spheres of the government, unable to comprehend the nature of such an unexpected behavior.

Are the events developing in the real world (Mexico) somehow influenced by this work of fiction? Is it possible that this next election can be used as an experiment in human consciousness?

Perhaps what I wrote turns out to be accurate, and the symbol of the blank vote will be infused with enough power to provoke a much needed social change, somehow bringing a world that only lives as an idea into our normal reality. If that is the case... are we not talking about a magical ritual?

This IS a ritual. We are killing our vote, offering it as sacrifice, so that out nation can have a brighter future. Better than to use the old methods of spilling blood, if you ask me...

I wish I could tell you how the book ends, but I'm afraid I haven't finished it yet. I also do not know what will happen in 4 days. I guess we'll have to wait and see :)

After blogging about the swine flu epidemic, I thought I'd write about something more amenable, and closer to the topics we like best here at TDG.

So today I'm going to write about this movie which I think I only saw once on TV a loooooong time ago, and yet it caused me such an impression that I never forgot about it; and I've been thinking about that movie for quite a while recently.

The problem was, I'd forgotten the name of the movie! So, making use of my —rather pathetic— Interwebz searching Kung-Fu, I finally managed to find the name of the film I'd seen back when I was a child.

The movie in question is "The Day Time Ended". And as the movie poster informs us:

THEIR LIVES BECAME A LIVING HELL...
WHEN PAST, PRESENT & FUTURE COLLIDED!

The IMDB page also has this brief plot summary:

Aliens visit the solar-powered house of a middle-class family, and the house is suddenly sucked into a time warp that transports it back to prehistoric times

This explanation really sucks; and I'll tell you why in a minute...

One of the reasons I think this particular movie stuck with me for so long —after watching it only once— was because of all the weirdness that throws at you. Not only there's UFOs, but also weird little green gnome-like creatures coming into the main characters' bedroom, along with monstrous beasts that have reptilian features; so the first thing you watch the movie the initial natural reaction is... WTF???

And from some of the movie reviews I've read, it seems most people don't go beyond that first reaction and quickly label this film as a pointless Sci-Fi B-movie without a clear story.

Ah! But for an avid student of Fortean phenomena, this jewel of a movie discloses a hidden treasure...

For you see, "The Day Time Ended" has an interest number of correlations with one of the most famous cases of high-strangeness that we know of: The Skinwalker ranch.

I'll try to list some of the things I remember about the movie, and compare it with the Skinwalker ranch info:

• The setting of the movie is in the southeast region of the United States, in a ranch that is kind of a cool mix of modern and traditional "Pueblo" architecture. We of course know that Skinwalker ranch is located in Utah.
• The main protagonists of the movie —a senior couple who own the ranch and plan to spend their golden years in it— are shown enjoying the beauty of the night sky when suddenly they have a UFO close encounter. UFO sightings are fairly common in the Skinwalker ranch.
• The movie hints that, after some weird cosmic event, the are of the ranch become some sort of "Time vortex", that presumably causes the Past, Present & Future to collide on this little desert area [Take a look at this clip from the movie]. So in that sense the monsters that go scaring the stable horses are some kind of prehistoric beasts, but personally I think that explanation sucks; to me, the plot is more interesting if we see what's happening as some sort of "Portal" —what John Keel might call a "Window Area"— that permits the entrance of creatures from another Universe/Dimension/Whatever into our level of reality. And as you all probably know, Bigfoot-like creatures are awfully common around the premises of the Skinwalker ranch.
• The movie also shows diverse examples of paranormal phenomena: Poltergeist effects, lights that turn on & off by themselves, etc. All of this also reported at Skinwalker ranch.

I won't tell you the ending of the movie, but I will disclose that the plot never fully explains the cause for all the mysterious phenomena that terrorize the characters. Some people might find this to be a serious flaw, but I on the other hand find this more enjoyable. As with Skinwalker ranch, a possible explanation for all the high-strangeness might be forever beyond our reach.

So, I recommend this movie to you, because to my understanding it might be one of the few examples where a Sci-Fi movie dared to mix all these paranormal phenomena together; something rather refreshing, considering the fondness of Hollywood to pigeon-hole themes in movies —either it's an alien film, or a monster film, or a ghost film, but a film where you have all of them?? that would make a studio exec have a stroke!

Here is a Veoh link that allegedly permits you to watch the whole movie on-line, provided you download some program to your computer —something I'm not ready to endorse simply because I'm not familiar with this Internet site.

If you decide to watch the movie online, or you've already seen it, I'd like to know what you think of it.

I'm telling you, the only thing lacking in "The Day Time Ended" is a little Mothman cameo :)

Today is 5 de Mayo. It is a very important holiday in the Mexican calendar, a day of festivity and rejoice. Obviously given the current circumstances, it's not the time to celebrate.

But now comes word of troubling developments around the world, where Mexicans are becoming the subject of prejudice & racism that many people were waiting for. We have become the new lepers of the world.

The most extreme cases are reported in China, where Mexican citizens visiting the country for business or tourism were rounded up and kidnapped by the Chinese authorities, and were later taken away to a hotel to held in a quarantine, despite that fact that they didn't show the symptoms of the flu.

That some nations feel compelled to cancel flights to Mexico is understandable (even though the WHO clearly specified that this wasn't necessary and wasn't going to stop the spreading of the flu at this point); that there are isolated events of racist attacks on Mexican citizens abroad was to be expected; but to take away innocent civilians merely for the origin of their passport is quite another thing. Not only that, but when you find a Mexican arriving in a plane, and you only take the Mexican away while leaving behind his/her friends only because they don't have a Mexican passport —and you don't disturb the rest of the passangers who might have been exposed to the malevolent virus carried by the Mexican host— is completely IDIOTIC.

It's always easier to do foolish things that give the impression that you are dealing with a problem, than to actually trying to solve it. The slaughter of pigs in Egypt & even the killing of 3 boars in Baghdad's Zoo are only a PR solution instead of an actual remedy to the outbreak. If only there were a virus that attacked stupid politicians!

The saddest part of it, is that Mexicans have ALWAYS been open & generous with all the visitors that come to our land. It's quite ironic actually, if we weren't like that, perhaps the virus wouldn't have spread so fast around the globe.

To any Mexican staying abroad reading these lines: Feliz 5 de Mayo!

[UPDATE] The Mexicans detained in China have left the country.

...Psst! Canucks: Looks like you're next, eh?

The Bad News: The new H1N1 flu virus continues to spread.

The Good News: Scientists think that it's not as deadly as its older cousins.

The flu chief for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Dr. Nancy Cox, said Friday the latest swine flu virus lacked traits that made the 1918 pandemic strain so deadly.

During the 1918 Spanish Flu epidemic, there were reports of people leaving to work feeling fine, and falling terribly sick within mere hours; or patients turning blue out of their difficulty to breath, and other horrible accounts worthy of a Stephen King novel —one of the reasons some people jokingly began to refer to his new flu strain as Captain Trips!

But then, how do we explain the deaths in Mexico, particularly in Mexico city?

At this time, I'm willing to consider that there's a combination of 4 factors that might —keep in mind that when reading the next list— have increased the risk in the Mexican patients:

• A slow response to assess the reality of the outbreak from the Mexican Health Department: I've written about it and I still insist on it, that it's my belief the Mexican authorities were slow to add 2+2 and see the problem they have on their hands until it was already too late. The authorities showed a lack of coordination, that is evident when reading about a comment from the director of the National Center of Epidemiologic Vigilance & Disease Control in Mexico, Miguel Angel Lezana, who in an interview with AP told that on April 16th he informed the Panamerican Health Organization (a branch of WHO) that there were an alarming rise in flu cases in Mexico, and that WHO failed to take any measures until April 24th. The officials of WHO emphatically deny this, and say that it was on April 23 when the CDC confirmed that they were dealing with the same strain of flu on both sides of the US-Mexico border; this is also the same position taken by Jose Angel Córdova, head of Mexico's Health Dept —so why are these two Mexicans contradicting each other? (This 'whodunnit' game is really pissing me off by now).
• Patients' tardiness to seek medical attention: The early victims of the outbreak thought that they were sufering from a common seasonal flu, and weren't quick to seek medical attention until the symptoms of the disease were too aggravated. We need to understand that self-medication is a very commnon occurrence among the Mexican population, and that medicines that would need a signed prescription in a US pharmacy are more easily obtained without one here in Mexico; that's one of the reasons why people prefer not to see a doctor until they have very strong symptoms.

  But then, when the first victims of the flu did go to see a doctor, since the doctors hadn't been informed about this new outbreak yet, they also didn't recognize what they were dealing with, and in some cases gave a wrong prescription to the patients, sending them home and assuring them that they would be fine in a couple of days —such was the case of a 24-year-old man who went to the doctor and was told he had a stomach infection, and after the existence of the swine flu was confirmed was once again admitted to the hospital when it was already to late to save him.

  Quote:

  "The worst part was thinking it was ordinary flu ... then going for medical help and suddenly realizing the problem is in your lungs and you're going to be placed in intensive care," [Manuel] Camacho Solis, now recovered but with a severely reduced lung capacity, told Reuters. (read more here)

  Since the epidemic alarm was officially raised, citizens were encouraged to seek medical attention during the first 48 hours of showing the symptoms of the flu, specially if high fever was present; the reason for this is that the anti-viral administered by the medical personnel (the famous Tamiflu) lost a lot of its effectiveness after 48 hours had passed.

• The inefficiency of the Mexican medical services to treat the patients as swiflty and propperly as possible: After the public was informed of the outbreak, thousands crowded the hospitals in the city, having to endure long waiting hours to see a doctor. The Health Dept issued the order that any person could be treated on the hospitals run byt the Mexican Social Security Insitute, even if they weren't registered with a Social Security number; but despite of this there were some scarce reports of people being denied of treatment, some patients complained that they had to give bribes in order to be admitted, and of paramedics refusing to transport a sick patient for fear of contagion —these reports were scarce thankfully, but they are evidence of the serious flaws of the health care that Mexican citizens of low income have to suffer.
• Atmospheric pollution: Bear in mind that this is a speculation on my part; but I do think that the high levels of smog and suspended particles that you can find in Mexico's central valley —where the city resides— might have been a factor that decreased the patients' chances to survive the flu. In that case, people living in more healthy environments free of smoke have less to worry about from this flu, while the inhabitants of polluted cities like Beijing should better watch their backs.

A final possible reason might be that the virus 'watered down' its aggresiveness when it began to spread to other areas. Something not unheard of in the evolution of diseases (but once again, this is to be taken as pure speculation on my part).

So, was it all a global overreaction? It may be too early to tell. For starters, we have to remember that it was also the CDC the ones who claimed that this new virus had elements of pig, avian & human strains —something hat was later dismissed by other geneticists that tested the strains, but managed to spawn a lot of improbable conspiracy theories re. the possible artificial origin of the flu as an evil bio-engineered weapon— My point is that if the CDC was wrong about the nature of the virus, they could be wrong also about its aggresiveness at this point. A big 'could' to be absolutely fair.

But we have to look at the numbers: So far it seems that there has only been one confirmed death of swine flu outside of Mexico — that of a 2-year-old Mexican little girl that died in a Texas hospital— so there's a strong indication that early detection of the symptoms and fast medical treatment renders the chances of dying of this bug null.

In other words: Calm down, but remain alert.

And if you hear of cases of swine flu appearing near you neighborhood, don't rush to put on your Hazmat suit! Just wash your hands more and go to the doctor if you feel you have a high fever —and be thankful that we're living in 2009 and not 1918 :)

In the end, this swine flu might serve as a drill exercise to propperly prepare for a probable avian flu outbreak in the future, which could turn out to be more serious. Otherwise the poor men & women who lost their lives might have done so in vain.

PS: and we could certainly do something about the way we grow the animals we eat as well! It strikes me as incredibly unfair how few people are able to afford the purchase of pork, and yet when an outbreak begins, everybody has to share the risks. don't you find an interesting similitude with the current Economic crisis?

Since last Saturday I raised a question on this blog:

Was Barack Obama imprudently exposed to the H1N1 flu virus(*)?

This would seem like a paranoid question, akin to those who think this whole epidemic is nothing but an evil plot to either a)cull the world's population and obtain huge profits for the Big Pharma industry; or b)help install a totalitarian police state thanks to the fear of a global pandemic.

For the record, I don't believe in any of those theories. What I do believe, is that governments are capable of incredible episodes of incompetence, and would go to great lengths to cover their mistakes. I think there's reason to suspect that the Mexican government was beginning to recognize a possible epidemic threat, but were slow to raise the alarms —having said that, I do think that, after they made the official anouncement of the outbreak threat, the Mexican authorities have tried to do all they can to resolve this problem; and given the limited resources at their disposition, that is no small feat. The medical personnel risking their lives tending the sick and infected deserve our biggest & most sincere admiration.

Getting back to the issue, today our good friend Loren Coleman wrote a very interesting post at his Copycat Effect blog, in which he discusses the report of a certain member of the US delegation that came to Mexico with President Obama & Energy Secretary Steven Chu, who was later found showing the symptons of the flu virus:

A member of the U.S. delegation that helped prepare Energy Secretary Steven Chu's trip to Mexico City has demonstrated flu-like symptoms and his family members in Anne Arundel County have tested positive for swine flu. Chu and Obama were in Mexico City together during the mid-April trip.

White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said Thursday, April 30, 2009, that three members of an aide's family are being tested to see if they have the same strain of swine flu that is threatening to become a pandemic. The aide worked in presidential advance, which is responsible for planning and preparing trips.

Gibbs said that Secretary Chu has not experienced any symptoms. The spokesman also said that President Barack Obama also has had no symptoms of the virus and doctors see no need to conduct any tests on his health.

The individual – an advance security staffer for Energy Secretary Steven Chu –appears to have spread the flu to his wife, son and nephew. All three have tested probable for swine flu, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said.

Here's another link to this news.

So who is this person? The White House has not disclosed the name; although I suspect we'll know it before the week ends.

Does this raise the suspicion that President Obama might have been exposed to the flu virus? I believe it does.

On other news related to this, Mexican politician Manuel Camacho Solís has cleared out of the hospital fully recovered from the flu infection he suffered lst week—I'm no big fan of him, for reasons too complex to delve at this moment, but I'm glad he recovered.

One of the things I still haven't found out, is whether Camacho was one of the guests at the reception dinner held for Obama at the National Museum of Anthropology—there's a good chance he might have been— and if he got infected there. According to an article he wrote for the newspaper El Universal, he started to feel strong symptons of the flu the morning of Tuesday April 21st. We know that the flu has an incubation period of approximately 48 hours to even 5 days (this according to what the doctors have been reproting on the news). The diner was on April 16th (8 pm I think); so, it could be possible he got infected that day on the dinner —if he did attend— although I admit it's a a big 'could'.

Let's see if Camacho gives an interview on TV; in the meantime, let's look up for some news related to this mystery delegate.

(*): Both the Mexican Health Secretary and the WHO wants to stop calling this the 'swine flu', because so far there has not been any reported case of the disease being transmitted from a animal to a human. I know this is kind of misleading, since we all know that somehow somewhere this god-damned bug DID make the jump from a pig to a man! But I understand that the authorities want to quell the kind of fears that prompted the needless slaughter of pig herds in Egypt, affecting the Christian Coptycs who make a living from raising these animals. The Mexican farmers are also very concerned about the fears of people about eating pork.

According to this official press release, the WHO has decided to raise the current level of influenza pandemic alert from phase 4 to phase 5:

All countries should immediately activate their pandemic preparedness plans. Countries should remain on high alert for unusual outbreaks of influenza-like illness and severe pneumonia.

At this stage, effective and essential measures include heightened surveillance, early detection and treatment of cases, and infection control in all health facilities.

This change to a higher phase of alert is a signal to governments, to ministries of health and other ministries, to the pharmaceutical industry and the business community that certain actions should now be undertaken with increased urgency, and at an accelerated pace.

What does it mean that the threat level has escalated from 4 to 5? It basically means that the disease is transmitted from person to person —something that we already knew since, like, LAST WEEK!— and that is now present in more than 2 regions or countries, causing outbreaks among people who haven't traveled abroad. So other nations are encouraged to begin to put into effect their own pandemic counter-measures.

Level 6 means full pandemic outbreak —presumably followed by rivers of blood and fire falling down from the sky (bad joke, I know)

So it looks like we are all in this together, amigos. Let's do all we can to put an end to it as quickly as possible.

Remember: Being on level 5 does not —repeat: DOES NOT— mean that getting to level 6 is inevitable.

Saludos

PS: And even if we get to level 6, I was just reminded by a friend that we've lived with a level 6 pandemic threat for decades by now; it's called AIDS, and as you already know... people are still having sex :}

Hmmm... I swear I'd made a update of this on one of my last entries. Well, no matter.

As I wrote earlier, a company called Veratect reported that they were the fist to detect the swine flu outbreak in Mexico since late March. Veratect was able to accomplish this by "by monitoring social media and combining that with official reports. What they do differently is put men on the ground, hiring local analysts to contextualise their data" (Guardian). I questioned the motives that prevented them to inform directly the government of Mexico, instead of going to the CDC and the WHO.

I first learned about this story from the newspaper Reforma, who wrote that Veratect had informed about the outbreak on April 2nd.

Wired picked the story, but here the dates don't match:

Veratect, a Seattle-based biosurveillance startup, claims they alerted the Centers for Disease Control to the situation in Mexico — where health officials suspect swine flu has killed up to 149 people — on April 16, before even the Mexican health authorities declared a problem.

April 16th? This is confusing.

“Wilson said they recognized the problem might become particularly bad because the Catholic holy week, known in Mexico as La Semana Santa, occurred from April 5 to 12. The holiday increases the amount of travel within the country, creating the perfect opportunity for the disease to spread.

From this article, you get the impression that Veratect learned about the possible outbreak threat from reports and chats of people discussing events linked to the disease. So that would mean they might have been detecting the reports coming from Veracruz and La Gloria, where the inhabitants were complaining of respiratory diseases provoked by Granjas Carroll since at least two months ago —the Health Department claims they did go and investigate, and they also claim they did find a 4-year-old child infected with swine flu; they confirmed it was the strand H1N1 after other reports were coming from other parts of the country, when they sent the samples to be analyzed abroad.

Like I wrote on the Wired comment section, I want to know why they didn't care to inform the Mexican authorities about it, since the Mexican government is stubbornly sticking to their story that they didn’t knew about the outbreak since last week (April 23d according to official records).

I also want to know, if the CDC was informed about this threat on April 16th, then why didn’t they inform Barack Obama prior to his visit to Mexico?? What's the point of turning the hotel where the most powerful man in the world spends the night into an impenetrable bunker, if you fail to protect him from a microscopic threat brought not by terrorists or criminals, but unaware friendly civilians shaking hands?

Today Reforma published an interview to a spokesman of Veratect, who told the reporter that the reason they didn't tink of contacting Mexican authorities directly, was because they "are a private company with no deals of relationships with foreign governments". They still claim they informed the Panamerican branch of the WHO, and they're washing their hands by insisting that "it was up to WHO to forewarn Mexico" about the impending swine flu threat. (I'll try to link this as soon as it's available in English)

It might be possible that Veratect failed to inform Mexico for a more simple reason: because they assumed that Mexican Health authorities were already aware of the first cases and the possibility of an outbreak; but since the Mexican government tried to save face by insisting they confirmed the outbreak on the late date of April 23d, Veratect —a small startup— wants to clear out of any controversial diplomatic quarrell and chooses to say that they preferred to inform of their results through the "proper channels" (the CDC & the WHO).

There are many things that remain unclear. HOW did the virus jump from pigs to humans crossing the intra-species barrier. WHERE did it originate, and WHY did it spread so rapidly before measures to contain it were implemented. Mexican authorities insist they have done all they can and even more, and that they have been transparent and honest since the beginning. Some people question this, and I am one of them.

Did the Mexican government waste precious days to determine that the flu cases on Veracruz were not your average seasonal flu but something far more dangerous? Was the delay to analyze the samples due to the fact that the lab work coincided with the Easter holidays, and nobody wants to work during the Catholic Holy week in Mexico —not even with a pandemic thread looming?

And I also want to know what role the Granjas Carroll pig farm played, if any, in this outbreak. Is it possible that the wastes from the farm (fecal matter that contaminated the water reservoirs of the nearby population, flies clouding over the foul oxidation pools, dead carcasses lying around on the open, etc) were the original contagion vector between pigs and humans?

But, if that's the case, then what about the first reports of the swine flu by the CDC, in California & Texas? Did the outbreak come from a migrant worker returning to his/her hometown in Mexico for the holidays, as the government speculates?

Questions. Questions. Questions. Questions. Questions... :-/

[UPDATE]The first sequencing analysis of the influenza strand from the first cases reported by the CDC in California, seem to point out that the flu virus is a hybrid of two pig flu strands; not a mixture of pig, human & avian fly. This according to the geneticists of the University of Edinborough, as Wired reports:

“This is what we call a reassortment between two currently circulating pig flu viruses,” said Andrew Rambaut, a University of Edinborough viral geneticist. “Why it’s emerged in humans is anyone’s guess. It hasn’t been seen before in pigs as far as I know.”

Rambaut analyzed the gene sequences of viral samples taken from two infected California children. The samples were collected by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and made available to researchers through an international database of flu genomes.

This flu business is starting to make the UFO mystery easy a piece of cake by comparison!!! Brain... melting down...

And this new Wired article is also mentioning the Granjas Carroll as a piece of the puzzle:

However, understanding the origins could eventually help scientists determine how the virus evolved and where it originally emerged.

The earliest cases occurred in the town of La Gloria in the Mexican state of Veracruz, not far from a large and notoriously unsanitary hog farm operated by Granjas Carroll, a subsidiary of giant American food company Smithfield Foods.

Vercruz residents and some journalists have alleged that the virus could have evolved in the farm’s pigs, then passed into humans through water or insects tainted by infected waste. Many researchers, including the authors of a report issued last year by the Pew Commission on Industrial Farm Animal Production, have warned that unsanitary conditions at industrial hog farms could prove a breeding ground for new forms of influenza.

The World Health Organization has sent inspectors to the Granjas Carroll farm. The results of the investigation have not been announced. Smithfield issued a press release on Saturday stating that “it has found no clinical signs or symptoms of the presence of swine influenza in the company’s swine herd or its employees at its joint ventures in Mexico.” The company declined further comment, though CEO Larry Pope told USA Today that “(The term) swine flu is a misnomer.”

Rambaut, Holmes and Salzberg declined to speculate on whether the new H1N1 virus evolved on a hog farm or specifically in the Granjas Carroll facility.

However, it seems likely that pigs were the original host.

Help me out here, guys! >_<

As a new update to my blog post of last Saturday, The White House has issued a statement —with info from the Mexican embassy— to try to quell the speculations regarding the possible exposure of Obama to the swine flu virus outbreak in Mexico, as you can read in this article.

They even went so far and to issue a Q&A:

1. Was Felipe Solis the President's tour guide in Mexico city, and did he die of swine flu?

No .The Mexican embassy has issued a statement clarifying that Mr. Solis's death was not caused by swine flu.

Statement from Ricardo Alday, spokesman for the Mexican Embassy to the United States of America:

"Mr. Felipe Solís, Director of Mexico's National Anthropology Museum died on April 23rd, a week after he welcomed Presidents Obama and Calderón
at the Museum. He died of complications of a preexisting condition and not of swine flu.

2. Did Mexican authorities notify US officials about the swine flu issue in advance of the President's visit?

No they did not, but we have no reason to believe they withheld any information they had at the time. White House Medical Unit staff on the ground asked Mexican health officials and US embassy medical staff about any concerns regarding infectious disease, and were informed that there were none.

3. When did the US learn about the swine flu situation in Mexico?

As John Brennan of the Homeland Security Council indicated in this afternoon's briefing, we did not learn about the swine flu cases in Mexico until late last week.

Note that there's no mention whatsoever about Veratect's alleged warning to the CDC about the development of a health problem in Mexico since as early as the end of March.

The White House seems to trust the Mexican government in not deliberately withholding info on the swine flu problem prior to Obama's visit. Maybe they haven't heard yet about the complaint of the inhabitants of La Gloria about the health hazards provoked by the irresponsible waste management of Granjas Carrol.

As I have written previously, I do not believe on a sinister conspiracy involving the Mexican government to try to threaten the life of Obama; that would be just stupid: what gain could Mexico possibly get from all that?

No, what I think happened here is the usual series of incompetent decisions that characterize the Mexican government and its officials. Only that can explain tragic events like the death of one of President Calderón's closest collaborators last year.

And the fact that the CDC might have forgotten to inform the White House about the warning the received from Veratect, reminds us that incompetence can be expected on both sides of the border (Katrina, anyone?).

So, if there was a conspiracy, it might have been from middle-level officers trying to cover up their short-sightedness, not a NWO master plan.

[UPDATE]: Read this AP article about the criticism the Mexican government is getting for the outbreak.

It remained unclear where and how the epidemic began, how it has spread, who it has killed or how fast it is growing. And the government has yet to take some basic steps critical to containing any outbreak, such as quick treatment of people who had contact with the victims.

[...]But even as it did so, [the government] acknowledged the outbreak began earlier than April 12, the date it had previously linked to the first case. Cordova confirmed Monday that a 4-year-old boy who was part of an outbreak in eastern Veracruz state that began in February had swine flu. He later recovered.

Residents of the town of Perote said at the time that they had a new, aggressive bug — even taking to the streets to demonstrate against the pig farm they blamed for their illness — but were told they were suffering from a typical flu. It was only after U.S. labs confirmed a swine flu outbreak that Mexican officials sent the boy's sample in for swine flu testing.

Mexico's Agriculture Department said Monday that inspectors found no sign of swine flu among pigs around the farm in Veracruz, and that no infected pigs have been found yet anywhere in Mexico.

I swear this is the last update I'll make today. I'm going home now. Hopefully I won't dream with Jameske's flying pigs :-P

Our good friend Kat sent me a link to an article that points out the origin of this nasty epidemic to the pigs of Carrol's Farms.

And I ain't talking about the hogs kept at the pens. I'm talking about the swines running the company.

Grist food editor Tom Philpott writes:

Is Smithfield Foods, the world’s largest pork packer and hog producer, linked to the outbreak? Smithfield operates massive hog-raising operations Perote, Mexico, in the state of Vera Cruz, where the outbreak originated. The operations, grouped under a Smithfield subsidiary called Granjas Carroll, raise 950,000 hogs per year, according to the company Web site.

This story, as Philpott points out, was already being mentioned on the Mexican media, by both a small Veracruz-based paper —La Marcha— as well as by La Jornada, a national newspaper of leftist orientation.

According to both papers, the citizens of the community La Gloria had been complaining to the local and federal authorities about the unhygienic conditions in which Carrol's disposed of their wastes, which polluted both the air and the waters. The locals told of foul smells coming from the oxidation pools that the company kept on open ground, and of clouds of flies that the pools created. So it would seem that the vector for the vius were either the waste waters that contaminated the ground reservoirs, or the flies hovering the pools —either alternative is terrifying, and there's been no talk in the media about how exactly the virus jumped from the pigs to humans; until now my guess was that the infection came from California or Texas (given the earliest CDC reports) possibly by a migrant worker that traveled to Veracrúz. So what is the truth?

These articles are from April 5th (Jornada) and April 15th (La Marcha).

The neighbors of La Gloria warned the authorities that the wastes of these pig breeding farms caused an outbreak of respiratory infections and pneumonia in 60% of their 3000 inhabitants.

According to La Jornada, by that time the local Congressman downsized the threat and even blamed the locals for spreading the disease, by not going to a clinic and opting to treat the sick with local remedies. Obviously, this pendejo(*) has never had the necessity to go to one of the clinics run by the state, where they hardly have medicines and people can wait many hours to see a doctor...

If you read my previous post, you'll find that the director of the Health Secretary did acknowledge that they sent people to the pig farming area of Veracruz, but in the article of La Marcha, you read that he dismissed the notion that Carrol's were contaminating the water supplies.

The locals have also informed that because of their complaints, they have been harrased by Carrol's employees. All I can say is... hijos de su pinche madre!! (*).

So things are beginning to clear up. As usual, when the poor are the only ones affected, the authorities are slow to response or they don't heed the warnings for fear of upsetting the multinational companies that inject money to the region. But now things have changed dramatically: now we're talking about a threat by both poor & rich, a threat that menaces not only the people of a small town in Mexico's undeveloped countryside, but that has the potential of disrupting the lives of every human being in this planet.

This outbreak is not a conspiracy-theory bio-weapon threat, as some suggest. This is merely the end result of our usual idiocy an short-sightedness, coming to bite us in the ass.

Will this be the wake-up call that forces us to start reversing our ways and force greedy companies to think in the long term instead of minding only about quaterly profits without giving a fuck about the repercussions of their actions?

Only time will tell... in the meantime, this is an election year in Mexico. Hopefully the people will think about using their vote to oust the incompetents that were to slow and/or stupid to impede this nightmare.

(*): Look for the translation at your own risk ;-)

PS: I admit that jumping to conclude that Carrol's was the origin of the outbreak is too premature. It is still possible that the infection first came up in California and from there it jumped to Mexico; all the medical experts answering the questions of the Mexican population have not said anything about the possibility that waters contaminated with pig feces or flies could become vectors for the flu; the fact remains though, that one case of H1N1 swine flu infection was confirmed in La Gloria by the Health Department.

Despite all this the activities of this pig breeding company must be thoroughly investigated. Even if they didn't cause the epidemic, they are still pigs who need to clean their pigsty.

Recent news inform that Veratect, an American bio-surveillance company, informed the CDC of a influenza-related health threat in the pig farms area of the port of Veracrúz since the end of March.

Using its artificial intelligence and global network of multilingual analysts, Veratect detected the first indications of the influenza outbreak in Mexico at the end of March. As such, it was the first to alert the Emergency Operations Center and Global Disease Detection Center at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said Veratect CEO Bob Hart. It also passed the information on to health officials in Colorado, Nevada and Washington state.

OK, first: Why the hell didn't they inform the Mexican government first?? According to Reforma (a Mexican newspaper), Veratect informed the WHO by April 2nd (more on that later). Right now I'm hearing a radio press conference from the Health Secretary director, who grudgingly acknowledged that they did knew about the alert from Veracrúz, went to investigate, and found one child with the same viral strand that caused the outbreak. And... that's it. Maybe they thought they should keep an eye on this, but it doesn't seem they did such a great job, does it?

The Secretary director was just asked by an American reporter about Veratect. He angrily replied that he didn't know anything about Veratect, and that Veratect acted irresponsibly by not informing the WHO— so right now is confusing the chain of events, whether the WHO informed Mexico on April 2nd, or whether the Mexican authorities reported the outbreak to the WHO as they seem to claim. My gut tells me it was the former.

Meanwhile, for those of you with time to spare and a morbid fascination for health threats, you can watch the swine flu outbreak in real time, thanks to the guys at Gizmodo (thanks to Loren Coleman for the tip).

The Mexican government informs of a death toll of 103 confirmed deaths. It seems highly likely that this figure is inaccurate, and that in fact the number of deaths is higher.

Sergio Sarmiento, a Mexican journalist who writes for the Reforma newspaper, was told by an employee of the ISSTE (The Social Security Service for the State employees) on his radio show that they had 194 deceases in the last 2 weeks.

Also, an uncle of mine works at the newspaper Excelsior, and he told his wife that they've had reports of over a thousand deaths, but that the government forbids them to release these figures. Bear in mind this is an unconfirmed rumor.

I wrote Sarmiento to ask him if he knows whether Manuel Camacho Solís —read the past blog post— was a guest on the reception diner held in honor of President Obama's visit to Mexico. I'll keep you informed if he writes back.

The Veratect issue is rather confusing right now. Whether they informed the WHO about the outbreak, or just the CDC is frankly a bit unclear right now.

PS: On top of that, a few minutes ago we had an earthquake! A 6.0 apparently. Like Loren (Coleman) advises me, I should look out for falling frogs from the sky now @_@

PPS: As of April 27th at 21:17 hrs (Mexico city time), this story about Veratect has not been mentioned in other media networks apart from Tech Flash (and the Mexican newspaper Reforma). Searching for 'Veratect' on the CDC page yields no results. Is it just a rumor promoted by the company?