Egypt ordered the slaughter of 350,000 pigs over the Swine Flu - even though eating pork has nothing to do with the spread of the Swine Flu. Both the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the U.S. Department of Agriculture have indicated influenza is not passed through food. This is very uncool. Calling all PETA members...
CAIRO (Reuters) – Egypt began slaughtering the roughly 300,000 pigs in the country Wednesday as a precautionary measure against the spread of swine flu even though no cases have been reported here yet, the Health Ministry said. The move immediately provoked resistance from pig farmers. At one large pig farming center just north of Cairo, farmers refused to cooperate with Health Ministry workers who came to slaughter the animals and the workers left without carrying out the government order. “It has been decided to immediately start slaughtering all the pigs in Egypt using the full capacity of the country’s slaughterhouses,” Health Minister Hatem el-Gabaly told reporters after a Cabinet meeting with President Hosni Mubarak. Egypt’s overwhelmingly Muslim population does not eat pork due to religious restrictions. But the animals are raised and consumed by the Christian minority, which some estimates put at 10 percent of the population.Health Ministry spokesman Abdel Rahman estimated there were between 300,000-350,000 pigs in Egypt. All major news outlets are reporting that it is ok to eat pork and that the virus is not spread through eating pork.
2 comments:
It's always a little astounding to read examples of such ignorance around the world, particularly when they persist in direct contradiction with or disregard for concrete scientific rationale...
Seriously. I was revisiting the stats about the "swine" flu and the death toll is barely a fraction of that from the "regular" flu.
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