To Calm Fears of Presidential Exposure to Swine Flu, White House Sends Out Statement from Mexican Embassy
EmailTo assuage fears — apparently based on false information — that President Obama had been exposed to the swine flu while in Mexico 11 days ago, the White House took the unusual step of sending out a statement from the spokesman for a foreign government Monday.
"Mr. Felipe Solis, Director of Mexico’s National Anthropology Museum died on April 23rd, a week after he welcomed Presidents Obama and Calderon at the Museum," said Ricardo Alday, spokesman for the Mexican Embassy to the US, in a statement emailed to White House reporters. "He died of complications of a preexisting condition and not of swine flu.”
Many questions at today’s White House briefing were about Solis, a noted archeologist who met President Obama at an archeology museum in Mexico City on Thursday, April 16 and died the next week.
Mexican newspapers reported that Solis contracted the flu the day after meeting President Obama and died of it days later.
The White House advises that President Obama is in fine health with no symptoms of the flu.
"I specifically asked somebody on my staff to speak directly with the doctors of the President of the United States of America, ask them if they were at all concerned," White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said Monday. "They said, no. The President, as I mentioned yesterday and on many other previous occasions, has not exhibited any symptoms that would require that to be of concern."
Gibbs added that "the President’s health was never in any danger; that he has not exhibited any symptoms; neither has anybody traveling with him; neither has any of the press that traveled with him that I’m aware of exhibited any symptoms that would cause some reason for concern."
A spokesman for the Solis family has said that Solis did not die of influenza.
“It’s absolutely false,” Julio Castejon told the Chronicle, saying Solis died of a heart attack linked to chronic diabetes and other ailments. “They found no evidence of influenza. This is yellow journalism.”
The first death due to swine flu was on April 13.
President Obama was in Mexico on April 16 through 17.
White House officials say that the Mexican government did not advise the US government about the swine flu before the president’s trip. The Obama administration found out about the swine flu outbreak in Mexico early last week.
– jpt
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According to some items I’ve seen there are only a couple of labs that can do the tests to identify the swine flu virus specifically. How many of the US cases have actually been confirmed as swine flu and how many simply show the physical symptoms and preliminary lab test for flu in general?
Posted by: marylt | April 27, 2009, 6:23 pm 6:23 pm
Someone needs to tell Google Earth that is tracking this outbreak. They list Solis by name as a victim.
Posted by: sybilll | April 27, 2009, 6:24 pm 6:24 pm
It’s foolish how reports are being blown way out of porportion. Let’s take the swine flu for what it is and what we know of it. Instead, this is where the media starts to really push it, telling the masses about false information or things they have no source for. The best thing to rely on are the experts. It’s funny because they stress the point that the flu IS cureable and there’s no need for panic at the moment. It is scary to see something like this blow out, but what’s with the dramatization? This doesn’t seem like the media is information feeding knowledge.
Posted by: rosier | April 27, 2009, 7:26 pm 7:26 pm
It’s pathetic that some people have such shallow lives that they have to worry and fret about BO’s health. Take care of your own selves and let the pres take care of himself. Besides, we would be in good hands with Biden, right?
Posted by: tin can | April 27, 2009, 7:42 pm 7:42 pm
Susan “Swine Flu Sue” Collins bragged about getting swine flu funding cut from the stimulus, and voted against the omnibus spending bill it ended up in.
The GOP was the party of salmonilla, now its also the party of swine flu.
Posted by: Flash Override | April 27, 2009, 8:20 pm 8:20 pm
“Swine flu has presented the Obama administration with its first major public-health crisis. Fortunately for the Obama team, the Bush administration developed new tools that will prove critical in meeting this challenge.
“Under President Bush, the federal government worked with manufacturers to accelerate vaccine development, stockpiled crucial antivirals like Tamiflu, war-gamed pandemic scenarios with senior officials, and increased the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) sample identification capabilities. These activities are bearing fruit today.”
We eagerly await Mr. Obama’s first mention of his predecessor’s role in anticipating this development and preparing for it. (Hint: it won’t come.)
Posted by: Fascist Hyena | April 27, 2009, 11:10 pm 11:10 pm
Napolitano will be on the alert, too. All returning veterans will be checked to make sure they’re not intentionally spreading the thing. And the Canadian border will be quarantined.
Posted by: Fascist Hyena | April 27, 2009, 11:16 pm 11:16 pm
Fascist Hyena:”We eagerly await Mr. Obama’s first mention of his predecessor’s role in anticipating this development and preparing for it. (Hint: it won’t come.)”
Seeing as how the Republicans fought successfully to strip the last $900 million of funding from this effort started by President Bush’s administration, I doubt they’ll be too aggressive in bringing it up. “Hey, look at this great program Bush started – of course, we killed it to make a point last month, but the part we let through may be really useful!”
Posted by: jhw539 | April 27, 2009, 11:39 pm 11:39 pm
Mr. Obama was in Mexico recently. Did someone already checked him for Swine flu?
Posted by: young_voter | April 27, 2009, 11:43 pm 11:43 pm
“Is Smithfield Foods, the world’s largest pork packer and hog producer, linked to the outbreak? Smithfield operates massive hog-raising operations Perote, Mexico, in the state of Vera Cruz, where the outbreak originated. The operations, grouped under a Smithfield subsidiary called Granjas Carroll, raise 950,000 hogs per year, according to the company Web site.
On Friday, the U.S. disease-tracking blog Biosurveillance published a timeline of the outbreak containing this nugget, dated April 6 (major tip of the hat to Paula Hay, who alerted me to the Smithfield link on the Comfood listserv and has written about it on her blog, Peak Oil Entrepreneur):
Residents [of Perote] believed the outbreak had been caused by contamination from pig breeding farms located in the area. They believed that the farms, operated by Granjas Carroll, polluted the atmosphere and local water bodies, which in turn led to the disease outbreak. According to residents, the company denied responsibility for the outbreak and attributed the cases to “flu.” However, a municipal health official stated that preliminary investigations indicated that the disease vector was a type of fly that reproduces in pig waste and that the outbreak was linked to the pig farms. It was unclear whether health officials had identified a suspected pathogen responsible for this outbreak.”
Posted by: Joan | April 28, 2009, 2:59 am 2:59 am
I thought only mortals could contract the flu??
Posted by: DontGet818OnMeNow | April 28, 2009, 6:10 am 6:10 am
Thirty-three years ago, President Gerald Ford’s quick response to swine flu didn’t go well. More people died from the innoculations than from the disease.
Posted by: Neo | April 28, 2009, 9:05 am 9:05 am
“All those little porky things that the House put in, the money for the National Mall or the sexually transmitted diseases or the flu pandemic, they’re all out,” Sen. Charles Schumer (D-NY) said in February.
Posted by: Senator Chuck Schumer killed pandemic funding | April 28, 2009, 9:15 am 9:15 am
This is why we do not have a Secretary of Health and Human Services yet. She lied in disclosing her campaign contributions.
“President Obama’s nominee for health secretary received nearly three times as much political money from a controversial abortion doctor as she had told senators,” the Associated Press is reporting, noting that this marks “the second time in her confirmation process” that Gov. Kathleen Sibelius (D-Kansas) “had to explain a financial oversight” to the Senate Finance Committee.
Sibelius’s need to correct “three years’ worth of tax returns” and to pay “more than $7,000 in back taxes to fix improper deductions” was the first “oversight” the Kansas governor had to correct.
Posted by: Another Day, Another Crooked Obama Nominee | April 28, 2009, 9:28 am 9:28 am
People die for this everda and then now this has to happen because of foolish animals and then now we have to pay for it, I don’t want to die at this young of age! The hould run a whole bunch of reports on the Swine Flu and get it over with! I hope it gets cold and the FLU can wear off!
Posted by: Alexandra Jonas | April 28, 2009, 9:58 am 9:58 am
Yip Yip Yahoo. OK no major health concern.
Why are they silent on the cost to the ag industry from other countries banning our meat products?
Why are they silent on the economic damage to the travel, tourism industry as other countries have advised against travel to the US.
So don’t worry about our health (yet), but once again this administration screw ups has us gripping our wallets in pain.
Posted by: MNM | April 28, 2009, 10:23 am 10:23 am
mnm: so now Obama is responsible for the Swine Flu outbreak. Hilarious. There seems to be no lengths to which you haters will go to try to see the president fail!
Posted by: EdDoc80 | April 28, 2009, 10:39 am 10:39 am
Re: “Why are they silent on the cost to the ag industry from other countries banning our meat products?”
When these factory farms treat their waste and stop creating “fecal lagoons” that create disease then maybe other countries won’t ban these products.
Corporations think they can go to poor countries and not observe any environmental or labor regulations. Well, look what happens. I thought Obama was going to renegotiate NAFTA? That’s what he said. NAFTA makes these practices legal.
If this administration allows these unsafe, deadly corporate practices to continue, then I do partially blame Obama. An American company and their filthy factory farm practices are implicated in this. I guess because it’s Mexico that makes it OK.
This affects ALL of us.
Posted by: Joanne | April 28, 2009, 12:22 pm 12:22 pm
I would like for someone to tell me why everyone keeps saying this is swine flu when all the experts are saying it’s not! H1N1 influenza!!! Go Hogs Go!!!
Posted by: J | April 30, 2009, 2:26 am 2:26 am