They’re blaming the Mexicans, or pigs, but the wrong pigs. Pork industry spokespeople are trying to take the focus off the large factory hog farms operated by Smithfield Foods in the vicinity of La Gloria, MX, where the outbreak started. Smithfield is the largest supplier of US pork.

BTW You can track H1N1 Swine Flu developments via Veratect on Twitter. Keep in mind Veratect is a government intelligence corporation.

“According to state agents of the Mexican social security institute, the vector of this outbreak are the clouds of flies that come out of the hog barns, and the waste lagoons into which the Mexican-US company spews tons of excrement” -La Jornada, Mexico City.

Swine Flu is no communicable via the consumption of pork. In fact, according to Smithfield, no hogs have been diagnosed with the disease. Although we have only their word on that. The hogs may be asymptomatic. But the pork industry, and I’m guessing the major players, primarily Smithfield, are too big to fail, and are doing what they can to have broadcasters and public officials come up with another name for Swine Flu.

But I’m not sure we shouldn’t be scrutinizing the swine from the vicinity of a Swine Flu outbreak. It’s not the Poor Hapless Mexican Flu for example. Does Smithfield think its swine do not stink?

You can’t get Swine Flu by eating pork, but you can chose not to consume the products which keep the industrial “confined animal feeding operations” (CAFOs) in business. In this particular case, Smithfield Foods subsidiary Granjas Carroll in Veracuz, Mexico. Smithfield is “the leading processor and marketer of fresh pork and packaged meats in the United States, as well as the largest producer of hogs,” and has issued a formal denial of any Swine Flu link to its facilities.

If you are inclined to pass, for now, on Smithfield pork products, the domestic brands are John Morrell & Co., Armour-Eckrich Meats (Armour, Eckrich, LunchMakers, Healthy Ones, Margherita, Mayrose, Schickhaus, Corando), Curly’s Foods, Patrick Cudahy (Riojano/El Nino), Farmland Foods, Cook’s Ham, North Side Foods Corp., Stefano Foods, and Smithfield RMH Foods.

Less easy to see are Smithfield’s supply lines to restaurants. Smithfield provides the ham products to McDonalds and Subway.

The Big-Agra corporations involved are The Smithfield Packing Company, Cumberland Gap Provision Co., and Smithfield Specialty Foods Group, represented by porcine spokeswoman Paula Dean.

Maybe Ms. Dean wants to take her Porky Pig empathy embodiment act a step further, to lead a sun-less existence of a factory farm inmate.