The media is going crazy with the swine flu news. The media loves to compare every Flu outbreak no matter how small to the Spanish Flu pandemic that killed 40 million people. If you remember back a couple years ago we had the Bird Flue epidemic that had everyone scared but seemed to vanish from the mainstream news after a few months. The bird flu simply didn't go away, there are still cases of this virus infecting humans and killing humans everyday! Now we are all of a sudden hit with a potential pandemic of the Swine Flue Virus as there are cases in Mexico and a number of states in the US. People have died in Mexico, but there are no reported deaths in the US.
How could the US benefit from this "outbreak"?
Could this be a catalyst to further tighten up the US / Mexican Border?
If you remember, just weeks ago President Obama and Senator Hillary Clinton just made special trips to Mexico to help give advice regarding the escalating drug cartels that are causing havoc for the Mexican people and government. The US decided to send a 400 million dollar Aid Package to Mexico in December 2008 to help with the situation.
What has caused more deaths in the last year you ask? Swine flu or deaths related to the Mexican drug cartels?
The Swine Flue has been linked to 81 deaths reported
The Mexican Drug wars has been linked to 6,300 deaths in the year 2008.
Ahead of President Obama visiting Mexico there was a deadly gun battle between drug cartel members and Mexican Soldiers, where 16 people died.
Obama made the decision a month ago not to send US soldiers to help with the situation.
The secretary of homeland secuirity; Janet Napolitan, is the person addressing the US citizens regarding the Swine Flu outbreak and she was also the same person giving press announcements from the white house 1 month ago regarding the escalating violence in Mexico and what the Obama administration plans to do about it.
Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said the president isn't ready to grant Texas' request for a troop surge to ward off spillover violence.
"There's already a very, very heavy federal presence. We add to it, we target, we dedicate," Napolitano said at the White House, adding that she will meet with Gov. Rick Perry in Texas on Thursday to press for details on his call for 1,000 soldiers or border agents.
I was going to make a post about how this Swine Flu outbreak could affect stocks and Livestock commodities. If you go to the CME website you will see pork bellies and Lean Hogs have retraced and are near monthly lows.
You would expect a pop in some Vaccine related stocks like we saw with the Bird Flu scare a few years ago. The stocks that were affected then if I remember correclty were stocks like GNBT and NVAX. Just remember, it takes months to develop a vaccine. Right now the best anti-viral drug to treat Swine Flue is Tamiflu, made by Roche Pharmaceuticals.
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