As with the origins of Swine flu, the origin of the Mexican flu is close to being determined. There is a pig farm just miles from the first recorded cases of infection. This is the most scientific analogy so far. There are some in the internet blaming this outbreak on al Qaeda and the Mexican drug lords or even the large Pharmaceutical companies that manufacture antiviral drugs. There will always be those with conspiracy theories but scientific research and determination is always the best way to solve any question.
What is well known and documented is that the pig can host many different viruses at once. A pig’s diet is largely to blame for this; they are nature’s garbage disposals. Since their body can harbor many different viruses at once and they can stay relatively health, the viruses mutate or combine with other viruses and create a new strain. The first known virus of the H1N1 variety was discovered in the American swine population in 1930, and from there the spreading throughout the population has occurred. Over 50% of the swine in North America have been found to have antibodies against the H1N1 flu virus, which can be translated that over half of the pigs in North America have had this virus at some time in their life.
When humans come in close contact with an infected pig the virus has a chance to migrate to the new human hosts. This is not every time nor often but it has occurred. The creation of the Mexican flu is not the first 1900’s pandemic of the swine flu virus and a conspiracy of a secret weapons laboratory releasing this virus is about as real as there is life on the sun.
This writer is very concerned about the Mexican Flu 2009 as we had a death in our family from the 1918 Spanish Flu pandemic. It is said that from 30 to 50 million people died during that pandemic and my father’s older sister was one of them. Dad talked about that episode in his family’s history often and he was always sad about the fact that she was struck down as a young adult.
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