Scientific American: U.S. Pig Farms May Be 'Flu Factories'

Scientific American: U.S. Pig Farms May Be 'Flu Factories'

www.npr.org

... an article just published in Scientific American says our pig monitoring is pretty bad. So bad that American pigs farms are virtually "flu factories," according to author Helen Branswell, a Nieman Fellow in global health reporting at Harvard University.

Why is monitoring so slack? The problem, Branswell writes, is that the pork industry is reluctant to share data with human health officials. And, Branswell says that industry results of pig flu tests are kept confidential.

(visit the link for the full news article)


Related News Links:
(link tracking not allowed)
www.scientificamerican.com
www.telegraph.co.uk
www.guardian.co.uk

So the pork industry runs its own tests to monitor flu, and it's "reluctant" to share its data with human health officials.

Industry results of pig flu tests are kept confidential.

What?

Confidential!?!

As in state secrets, copyright and intellectual property rights? As in arrest whomever blows the whistle?

...Flu viruses circulate in humans, pigs and birds, and infect a range of animals. About 12 years ago, "those viruses began evolving and recombining into new forms that could sicken humans much faster than before."

Much of the viruses' evolution and recombination occurs in factory farms.

Still, the H1N1 swine flu pandemic was anti-climactic - almost everyone got it, but few people were really sick.

Now it's back with a vengeance. In England, 27 people have already died this season from H1N1 swine flu.

Ten more deaths linked to flu in a week as cases accelerate:

Ten more people have died in the last week after contracting flu bringing the total this winter to 27, it has been revealed.

The H1N1 swine flu strain is responsible for the majority of the deaths as cases of influenza continue to rise.

It is feared cases of flu and deaths are accelerating as the flu season takes hold.

The number of people seeing their GP with flu symptoms has increased six fold in the last three weeks.

H1N1 is the predominant strain circulating this winter and is following a similar pattern as during the pandemic when it struck young age groups hardest and caused some severe illness.

Most worrisome, children are the hardest hit.

Flu surge alarms doctors as virus hits children: Number of recorded cases this season doubles as fears grow of swine flu resurgence.

Influenza expert Professor John Oxford described the upward curve of the flu cases graph as “pretty horrible”.

Concerns over the spread and virulence of the latest flu outbreak are increasing among health experts, following a doubling of cases in a week and the announcement today of 10 more deaths, taking the total this season to 27.

...According to the Royal College of GPs, confirmed cases have increased from 32.8 per 100,000 to 87.1 per 100,000 in the last week.

The true figure will be higher as some people will stay at home in bed without seeing a doctor.

The chief anxiety is that the predominant strain is H1N1 swine flu, which triggered last year's pandemic and is now coming around for a second season.

Elsewhere, Egypt and Indonesia both reported simultaneous cases of swine flu and bird flu - a situation which increases the likelihood that the two strains will share genetic material, and create a super-flu.

Meanwhile, pig farms are flu factories and reservoirs. But information about flu on pig farms remains an industry "secret."









www.npr.org
(visit the link for the full news article)

About factory farms: a quick trip down memory lane:







PERSONAL STATEMENT:

I do NOT use vaccines. I strongly believe the underlying rationale is flawed, that the stocks are contaminated and the use of Rous virus contaminated chicken eggs in vaccine manufacturing contributes to the chronic disease pandemic.

Of course they are. Same with other factory farmed animals like chicken and cow. The American corporations behind the agriculture and meat markets will stop at nothing to acheive maximum profit and they have no problem with farming animals in extremely disturbing conditions which creates new forms of pathogens, only to cover up the problem with chemical solutions.

The entire food industry of the US is a plague. Think the red tone in the beef that you buy is blood? It's actually red colouring added to the beef which is bleached white to kill off potential ecoli strains that develop from the diplorable conditions that these animals suffer under.

reply to post by Dimitri Dzengalshlevi


The problem is not just American factory farms. It's ALL factory farms - and the global food industry.

We're industrializing and globalizing our food production at GREAT peril.

This comes down to choosing the lesser of two evils, wich isn't always as easy as it sounds.

All the things presented here about the mismanagement of health and safety on the food sector are true, but government allowed those problems to be so they can give you their solution in form of vaccine.
The old "create problems to introduce solutions" works everytime in the management of society.

And it may be just a coincidence, but this string of health and food related news from the US lead one to think there's is a sort of War on Food goin on, or looming closely.

First they let you all overfeed in chemicals and junk food then they tell you how bad you are for eating what they told you to.

Originally posted by soficrow
Industry results of pig flu tests are kept confidential.

What?

Confidential!?!

The news not funny though! My reaction was the same as yours when I read this part. Confidential? When the publics health is at risk, data within the industry can't be shared with public health officials?

I love my pork chops, bacon and pork skins as much as anyone else who loves their pork products but I'll quit eating anything with pork just to send a message to the industry that they can't be messing with the health of the public.

I know my boycott won't amount to anything but when millions of pork lovers band together for a common cause, they'll get the message.

reply to post by Intelearthling

...I love my pork chops, bacon and pork skins as much as anyone else who loves their pork products but I'll quit eating anything with pork just to send a message to the industry that they can't be messing with the health of the public.

Oh dear. ...You'll have to quit eating entirely if you really want to flag the dangers and send your message to all the agri-industries and food processors at fault here. Most everything we eat is contaminated with disease-causing chemicals or new microbes and dangerous mutations - not just pork, chicken and beef or salmon and tuna, but our veggies too. And don't get me started on GM food!

...RE: Disease-causing viruses, bacteria and prions in the food supply. The "old" bugs started recombining and evolving about 12 years ago - but the FDA did NOT update its regulations and expand the list of disallowed contaminations. Instead, we got the "Cheeseburger Bill", and public health campaigns saying "Health is a Personal Responsibility."

Rule of thumb: Handle everything you eat carefully, preferably wearing gloves, and cook the bejeezus out of it before consuming.

The now regular appearance of new zoonoses is recognized as a problem, but no one has figured out how to act decisively to protect public health without damaging the food industry and threatening the global economic system.

From the 2007 Report, Priority Setting for Foodborne and Zoonotic Pathogens:

...There is nearly universal agreement that food safety priority setting decisions should be informed by scientific information and analysis, beginning with a data-driven approach to ranking the public health impact of specific foodborne hazards. Work is underway to establish protocols for how such food safety risk ranking should be done. Much of the focus is on development of an integrated framework for pathogen risk ranking to support priority setting decisions that combines epidemiological information on disease incidence, data on the attribution of these illnesses to foods, knowledge about the symptoms, medical treatments, and health outcomes of disease, and the economic and quality-of-life impacts of these health outcomes.

...Human illness due to foodborne and zoonotic pathogens remains a persistent problem because of its tremendous complexity and dynamic nature. Complexities include a large number of unique microorganisms that cause a wide range of human health outcomes, a vast array of foods and animals that serve as vehicles for human exposure, and a wide range of causative and contributing factors that affect contamination, growth, persistence, and inactivation throughout the farm to fork food continuum. ...

Pig Flu in the USA?

And it's kept secret?

First thing they do here when they find a case of the pig flu is kill off all pigfarms in a 10km radius and the area gets closed down...

This is a dangerous and deadly disease if it jumps to humans, keeping it secret is just plain irresponsible.

Originally posted by Dimitri Dzengalshlevi
Of course they are. Same with other factory farmed animals like chicken and cow. The American corporations behind the agriculture and meat markets will stop at nothing to acheive maximum profit and they have no problem with farming animals in extremely disturbing conditions which creates new forms of pathogens, only to cover up the problem with chemical solutions.

The entire food industry of the US is a plague. Think the red tone in the beef that you buy is blood? It's actually red colouring added to the beef which is bleached white to kill off potential ecoli strains that develop from the diplorable conditions that these animals suffer under.

Ok, show me some figures on hog farm workers and their children having flu at a much higher rate than the rest of us and I will buy in. Otherwise this is the beginning of putting the small farmers out of the deal. The big boys will never go down this is amied at the little guy. Trying to get joe blow with 50 chickens and 10 hogs to see it as a hazard to his health and to others around him.

reply to post by Logarock


We've had a few outbreaks here and even though no farmers died (built up resistance maybe? same reason why the pigs themselves don't suffer that much?) we did have deaths resulting from it jumping to humans.

reply to post by Romekje


But are they sure that this outbreak came from some local farm? Was it swine flu?

You can have my bacon when you can pry it from my cold, dead hands!

I think this is another solution looking for a problem. When you have a large population of any kind of animal, the potential for disease exists. I'm more worried about all the antibiotics they pump into the animals than anything else.

Just my humble 2 cents.

reply to post by beezzer



Yea just go online and look at the hard sickness one can get from pet birds. Some are really bad.

Originally posted by Logarock
reply to post by Romekje

 

But are they sure that this outbreak came from some local farm? Was it swine flu?

They won't kill off all pigs in a 10km radius without being sure ofc, the only way to be SURE where it comes from is by tracing the pigs back to their origins. back then the sources were mostly pigs imported from Germany.

The worst outbreak we suffered here a few years ago hit almost the entire industry and covered almost the entire country.

Took vast amounts of govt support and re-stocking of the farms not to have most of them go bankrupt..

Im wondering if theyre keeping it quiet just to increase the amount of vaccines sold in flu season.....

This sounds like another we can add to the "Modern Horror tome of Health", that we can page through with wide-eyes and a growing perspective. When you get to the end of the book, open rebellion and looking for lost uninhabited continents become distinct possibilities.

When it comes to non-organic food and medicine, keep your tinfoil hat on at all times, and remember not to eat poison!

Wow. Good information, and I too, and horrified by the "confidentiality" of the methods they use.

But surely no flu virus could survive the way we typically treat bacon..........fry it to an inch of it's life.

Now for the rest of that pre-packaged stuff, and canned ham and the like, NO TELLIN'.

I have a friend who got trichinosis from a ham pizza. In Teheran, Iran.

reply to post by Romekje
Do you now if this hit all breeds of pig and swine? I am woundering if older lines of hogs are less the carriers. So this outbreak didnt kill the hogs? What was the effect on humans? Did you have a large outbreak of something?

Im not sure about the breeds and such that it affects but since the remedy here is a total wipeout of the population to protect all others only suggests it hits any pig.

If it jumps to humans it's not always lethal but it can be, i guess it depends on your personal state of health or age, or a combination.

It's "just" a flu, the only difference is that it can jump species. In the Netherlands they pay close attention to animal flu's and sadly, if one breaks out, take rigourous measures to prevent spreading, generally meaning killing off all private and corporate animals of the affected species, sometimes even pets (in case of a birdflu for example)

reply to post by soficrow

Star!
In my initial post, I was just saying that I love "my pig." I probably eat more pork than the law should allow. I'm aware of the gross manipulation of our food products by industry. It's quite expensive to eat "healthy."

With mercury and arsenic laden fish products and growth hormones in our poultry and beef products, it's hard to get away from "chemicals" in todays society.

What the topic of the thread suggests is that an industry is covering up a potential flu epidemic and it'll affect pork lovers like me.

You're right about the part that we'd starve if we had demanded food products that's free of poisons and pathogens.

I've got to go right now. Merry Christmas and enjoy the baked ham!