Mexico Unveils Swine Flu Statue

More news stories on Mexico and Latin America

May Cuddehe, True/Slant, August 17, 2009

It’s finally here, everyone! The world’s first (and, I’m going to take a big journalistic leap into the future here, only) swine flu statue. In effigy is young Edgar Hernandez, aka “Patient Zero,” the boy from La Gloria, Veracruz, who was one of the first in Mexico to get the A/H1N1 virus. The governor of Veracruz decided to memorialize him after swine flu became the most exciting tourist attraction in La Gloria’s history.

The photo shows little bronze Edgar holding a frog in his right hand. Water pours from the frog’s mouth, somehow representing the virus that combines flu genes found in pigs and birds. “The Boy from La Gloria” is modeled after the famous peeing boy statue the Mannekin-Pis in Belgium. Governor Fidel Herrera Beltran explained the connection: “Edgar Hernandez is healthier than ever, and even when he goes to the bathroom people follow him because they want to cure themselves [with his urine].”

Original article

(Posted on August 19, 2009)

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Comments

1 — Whitey Ford wrote at 9:04 AM on August 20:

I thought Mexico was a poor, suffering wasteland where it’s citizens had to flee to America or else they would starve to death. How can they afford to build a statue celebrating unleashing a plague upon the world?

Edgar Hernandez is healthier than ever, and even when he goes to the bathroom people follow him because they want to cure themselves [with his urine].”

Just keep telling yourself “All cultures are equal, all cultures are equal, all cultures…”

2 — Strider wrote at 2:36 PM on August 20:

I’m reminded of the statue at St. Mary’s School in the film V for Vendetta, a memorial to victims of what turned out to be a government plot against its own people.

I’m also reminded of the 1976 swine flu scare, and the vaccine that killed far more people than the disease and maimed many more.

Then I’m reminded of the fact that Congress has already given the drug companies immunity from legal liability for the deaths or other harm their swine flu vaccine version 2.0 might cause.

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