Swine Flu - An Alternate Narrative

You would have to be living under a rock not to have heard about the H1N1-A or "Swine Flu," it's been heavily covered on every news outlet since it emerged. This latest flu is the latest example of how sensational American news has become, especially on international issues. But before I get to the Swine Flu, I’d like to mention a slightly older story that I find is a relevant back-story to the current debate.

Starting around 2006, a new national debate began on illegal immigration began, and throughout it all a few radical themes emerged. These themes were based on much older racial stereotypes, but in this case they were coated in a loose venire based on legal status. One of these themes emerged which is quite relevant to today’s topic - that Mexican illegal aliens are spreading disease into the United States.

Here we are today with a disease which seems to have begun in Mexico, which has spread into America. As you would imagine the anti-immigrant radicals are, as a friend put it, frothing at the mouth. This is because this international crisis conforms to the previous narrative, that Mexicans are bringing disease into America. But extremists aside, a slightly milder version of this narrative is still prevalent across the media – the Mexican people made a dangerous new flu and gave it to us.

It is important to remember that it has not been proven that H1N1-A came from Mexico, just that the first confirmed case is from Mexico, and an unexpectedly high majority of the deaths have been in Mexico as well.

I don’t pretend to be an expert on the flu, but I do watch international news very closely, and I am disturbed how one very important element of this story has escaped the attention of the vast majority of American mass media: since January, Mexico City has been under severe water shortages. For more than three months, Mexico City – the largest city in the world – has essentially been having rolling blackouts with its water supply.

“In some parts of the capital [Mexico City] washing hands has become a luxury. In recent months, some neighborhoods - all of them poor - have been without water service for two weeks at a time.” (NPR)

After quite a bit of searching online, I have been able to find no American news outlet other than NPR who has even related extreme water shortages in the world’s largest city to the outbreak of the new flu. Lack of water is a natural correlation, aren't you supposed to wash your hands and drink plenty of fluids? Regardless, now that the connection has been made, let me put forward an alternate narrative.

This flu season, a slightly new version of the flu virus emerges somewhere in the world. This flu has the exact same mortality rate as the standard seasonal flu, and so it doesn’t attract any attention . . . until people in Mexico City with the flu begin dying. Someone decides to do a genetic analysis of what what’s causing the illness and to his or her surprise, it turns out to be a new type of flu. Cautious governments around the world quickly react, fearing a 1918 style pandemic. The flu spreads like a pandemic around the world, but as it turns out this new version of flu is essentially exactly as dangerous as the normal flu. As world governments breathe a collective sigh of relief, the story begins to subside, all the while ignoring the true story. The Swine Flu panic began because the Mexican Government can’t provide for its citizens; the Mexican government - not the Mexican people - is at fault. While the Swine Flu crisis may have been resolved, the underlying problem remains – the Mexican people are dying because they don’t have access to clean water. Perhaps this is one of the reasons why they're trying to emigrate to America.

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Update:
Laurie Garrett, a Pulitzer prize winning author on pandemics, made a comment that industrial pig farms in the United States are a more likely source for the origin of the swine flu.  (Video clip; after minute 4). "So take that Lou Dobbs."