One of the many industrial hog farms outside Camden, Ind.
Readers shared their thoughts on this article.
The late Tom Anderson, the family doctor in this little farm town in northwestern Indiana, at first was puzzled, then frightened.
He began seeing strange rashes on his patients, starting more than a year ago. They began as innocuous bumps — “pimples from hell,” he called them — and quickly became lesions as big as saucers, fiery red and agonizing to touch.
They could be anywhere, but were most common on the face, armpits, knees and buttocks. Dr. Anderson took cultures and sent them off to a lab, which reported that they were MRSA, or staph infections that are resistant to antibiotics.
MRSA (methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus) sometimes arouses terrifying headlines as a “superbug” or “flesh-eating bacteria.” The best-known strain is found in hospitals, where it has been seen regularly since the 1990s, but more recently different strains also have been passed among high school and college athletes. The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that by 2005, MRSA was killing more than 18,000 Americans a year, more than AIDS.
Dr. Anderson at first couldn’t figure out why he was seeing patient after patient with MRSA in a small Indiana town. And then he began to wonder about all the hog farms outside of town. Could the pigs be incubating and spreading the disease?
“Tom was very concerned with what he was seeing,” recalls his widow, Cindi Anderson. “Tom said he felt the MRSA was at phenomenal levels.”
By last fall, Dr. Anderson was ready to be a whistle-blower, and he agreed to welcome me on a reporting visit and go on the record with his suspicions. That was a bold move, for any insinuation that the hog industry harms public health was sure to outrage many neighbors.
So I made plans to come here and visit Dr. Anderson in his practice. And then, very abruptly, Dr. Anderson died at the age of 54.
There was no autopsy, but a blood test suggested a heart attack or aneurysm. Dr. Anderson had himself suffered at least three bouts of MRSA, and a Dutch journal has linked swine-carried MRSA to dangerous human heart inflammation.
The larger question is whether we as a nation have moved to a model of agriculture that produces cheap bacon but risks the health of all of us. And the evidence, while far from conclusive, is growing that the answer is yes.
A few caveats: The uncertainties are huge, partly because our surveillance system is wretched (the cases here in Camden were never reported to the health authorities). The vast majority of pork is safe, and there is no proven case of transmission of MRSA from eating pork. I’ll still offer my kids B.L.T.’s — but I’ll scrub my hands carefully after handling raw pork.
Let me also be very clear that I’m not against hog farmers. I grew up on a farm outside Yamhill, Ore., and was a state officer of the Future Farmers of America; we raised pigs for a time, including a sow named Brunhilda with such a strong personality that I remember her better than some of my high school dates.
One of the first clues that pigs could infect people with MRSA came in the Netherlands in 2004, when a young woman tested positive for a new strain of MRSA, called ST398. The family lived on a farm, so public health authorities swept in — and found that three family members, three co-workers and 8 of 10 pigs tested all carried MRSA.
Since then, that strain of MRSA has spread rapidly through the Netherlands — especially in swine-producing areas. A small Dutch study found pig farmers there were 760 times more likely than the general population to carry MRSA (without necessarily showing symptoms), and Scientific American reports that this strain of MRSA has turned up in 12 percent of Dutch retail pork samples.
Now this same strain of MRSA has also been found in the United States. A new study by Tara Smith, a University of Iowa epidemiologist, found that 45 percent of pig farmers she sampled carried MRSA, as did 49 percent of the hogs tested.
The study was small, and much more investigation is necessary. Yet it might shed light on the surge in rashes in the now vacant doctor’s office here in Camden. Linda Barnard, who was Dr. Anderson’s assistant, thinks that perhaps 50 people came in to be treated for MRSA, in a town with a population of a bit more than 500. Indeed, during my visit, Dr. Anderson’s 13-year-old daughter, Lily, showed me a MRSA rash inflaming her knee.
“I’ve had it many times,” she said.
So what’s going on here, and where do these antibiotic-resistant infections come from? Probably from the routine use — make that the insane overuse — of antibiotics in livestock feed. This is a system that may help breed virulent “superbugs” that pose a public health threat to us all. That’ll be the focus of my next column, on Sunday.
•
I invite you to visit my blog, On the Ground. Please also join me on Facebook, watch my YouTube videos and follow me on Twitter.Swine Flu is Related to Virus Born on
By Michael Greger, M.D.
Dr. Michael Greger is director of public health and animal agriculture for The Humane Society of the
Factory farming and long-distance live animal transport apparently led to the emergence of the ancestors of the current swine flu threat. A preliminary
Plaguing People and Pigs
The worst plague in human history was triggered by an H1N1 avian flu virus, which jumped the species barrier from birds to humans[1] and went on to kill as many as 50 to 100 million people in the 1918 flu pandemic.[2] We then passed the virus to pigs, where it has continued to circulate, becoming one of the most common causes of respiratory disease on North American pig farms.[3]
In August 1998, however, a barking cough resounded throughout a
Within months, the virus had spread throughout the
Tracing the Origins of Today's Virus
Since the progenitor of the swine flu virus currently threatening to trigger a human pandemic has now been identified, it is critical to explore what led to its original emergence and spread. Scientists postulate that a human flu virus may have starting circulating in U.S. pig farms as early as 1995, but "by mutation or simply by obtaining a critical density, caused disease in pigs and began to spread rapidly through swine herds in North America. [emphasis added]"[8] It is therefore likely no coincidence that the virus emerged in
The year of emergence, 1998, was the year
By the end of the 1990s, operations confining more than 1,000 animals controlled about 99% of the state's pig population.[12] Given that the primary route of swine flu transmission is thought to be the same as human flu—via droplets or aerosols of infected nasal secretions[13]—it's no wonder experts blame overcrowding for the emergence of new flu virus mutants.
Intensive Crowding and Long-Distance Transport
Starting in the early 1990s, the
Dr. Robert Webster, one of the world's leading experts of flu virus evolution, blames the emergence of the 1998 virus on the "recently evolving intensive farming practice in the
Once the new viral mutant appeared in 1998, the rapid dissemination across the country has been blamed on long-distance live animal transport.[9] In the
"A Recipe for Disaster"
The remaining two gene segments of the H1N1 swine flu virus now spreading in human populations around the world appear to come from a swine flu viral lineage circulating in
The European Commission's agricultural directorate warns that the "concentration of production is giving rise to an increasing risk of disease epidemics."[25] Concern over epidemic disease is so great that Danish laws have capped the number of pigs per farm and put a ceiling on the total number of pigs allowed to be raised in the country.[26] No such limit exists in the
Warnings Unheeded
The public health community has been warning about the risks posed by factory farms for years. More than five years ago, in 2003, the American Public Health Association, the largest and oldest association of public health professionals in the world, called for a moratorium on factory farming.[27] In 2005, the United Nations urged that "[g]overnments, local authorities and international agencies need to take a greatly increased role in combating the role of factory-farming," which, they said, combined with live animal markets, "provide ideal conditions for the [influenza] virus to spread and mutate into a more dangerous form."[28]
Last April, the Pew Commission on Industrial Farm Animal Production released its final report. The prestigious, independent panel chaired by a former Kansas Governor and including a former U.S.
Specific to the veal crate-like metal stalls that confine breeding pigs like those on the North Carolina factory from which the first hybrid swine flu virus was discovered in North America, the Pew Commission asserted that "[p]ractices that restrict natural motion, such as sow gestation crates, induce high levels of stress in the animals and threaten their health, which in turn may threaten human health."[30] Unfortunately we don't tend to "shore up the levees" until after the disaster, but now that we know swine flu viruses can evolve to efficiently transmit human-to-human we need to follow the Pew Commission's recommendations to abolish extreme confinement practices like gestation crates as they're already doing in Europe, and to follow the advice of the American Public Health Association to declare a moratorium on factory farms.
A "Reservoir of Viruses" in the
With massive concentrations of farm animals within whom to mutate, these new swine flu viruses in
References
[1] Belshe RB. 2005. The origins of pandemic influenza-lessons from the 1918 virus.
[2] Johnson NPAS, Mueller J. Updating the accounts: global mortality of the 1918–1920 "Spanish" influenza pandemic. Bull Hist Med. 2002;76:105–15.
[3] Zhou NN, Senne DA, Landgraf JS, et al. 1999. Genetic reassortment of avian, swine, and human influenza A viruses in American pigs. Journal of Virology 73:8851-6. http://birdflubook.org/resources/ZHOU8851.pdf.
[4] Wuethrich B. 2003. Chasing the fickle swine flu. Science 299:1502-5. http://birdflubook.org/resources/WUETHRICH1502.pdf.
[5] Zhou NN, Senne DA, Landgraf JS, et al. 1999. Genetic reassortment of avian, swine, and human influenza A viruses in American pigs. Journal of Virology 73:8851-6. http://birdflubook.org/resources/ZHOU8851.pdf.
[6] Webby RJ, Swenson SL, Krauss SL, Gerrish PJ, Goyal SM, and Webster RG. 2000. Evolution of swine H3N2 influenza viruses in the
[7] Rabadan, R. 2009. Influenza A (H1N1) "swine flu": worldwide (04) [1] ProMED Digest 2009. 28 April. Volume 2009 : Number 196. http://www.promedmail.org/pls/otn/f?p=2400:1001:1580522401053605::NO::F2400_P1001_BACK_PAGE,F2400_P1001_
PUB_MAIL_ID:1000,77250.
[8] Webby RJ, Swenson SL, Krauss SL, Gerrish PJ, Goyal SM, and Webster RG. 2000. Evolution of swine H3N2 influenza viruses in the
[9] Environmental Defense. 2000. Factory hog farming: the big picture. November. http://www.edf.org/documents/2563_FactoryHogFarmingBigPicture.pdf.
[10]
[11] North Carolina Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services. 2001.
[12] Wuethrich B. 2003. Chasing the fickle swine flu. Science 299:1502-5. http://BirdFluBook.org/resources/WUETHRICH1502.pdf.
[13] Brown IH. 2000. The epidemiology and evolution of influenza viruses in pigs. Veterinary Medicine 74:29-46. http://BirdFluBook.org/resources/Brown29.pdf.
[14] 1993. Overcrowding pigs pays-if it's m
[15] Wuethrich B. 2003. Chasing the fickle swine flu. Science 299:1502-5. http://BirdFluBook.org/resources/WUETHRICH1502.pdf.
[16] Webster RG and Hulse DJ. 2004. Microbial adaptation and change: avian influenza. Revue Scientifique et Technique 23(2):453-65.
[17] USDA. 2009. Poultry Slaughter 2008. Annual Summary. http://usda.mannlib.cornell.edu/usda/current/PoulSlauSu/PoulSlauSu-02-25-2009.pdf
[18] USDA. 2009. Chickens and Eggs 2008 Summary. http://usda.mannlib.cornell.edu/usda/current/ChickEgg/ChickEgg-02-26-2009.pdf
[19] Wuethrich B. 2003. Chasing the fickle swine flu. Science 299:1502-5. http://birdflubook.org/resources/WUETHRICH1502.pdf.
[20] Shields DA and Mathews KH Jr. 2003. Interstate livestock movements. USDA Economic Research Service: Electronic Outlook Report from the Economic Research Service, June. usda.mannlib.cornell.edu/reports/erssor/livestock/ldp-mbb/2003/ldp-m108-01.pdf.
[21] MacKenzie D. 1998. This little piggy fell ill. New Scientist, September 12.
[22] Ibid.
[23] Delgado C, Rosegrant M, Steinfeld H, Ehui S, and Courbois C. 1999. Livestock to 2020: the next food revolution. Food, Agriculture, and the Environment Discussion Paper 28. For the International Food Policy Research Institute, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations and the International Livestock Research Institute. http://ifpri.org/2020/dp/dp28.pdf.
[24] Webster RG, Sharp GB, and Claas CJ. 1995. Interspecies transmission of influenza viruses. Americal Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine 152:525-30.
[25] MacKenzie D. 1998. This little piggy fell ill. New Scientist, September 12, p. 1818.
[26] Ibid.
[27] American Public Health Association. 2003. Precautionary moratorium on new concentrated animal feed operations. Policy number 20037. www.apha.org/advocacy/policy/policysearch/default.htm?id=1243.
[28] United Nations. 2005. UN task forces battle misconceptions of avian flu,
[29] Pew Commission on Industrial Farm Animal Production. 2008. Expert panel highlights serious public health threats from industrial animal agriculture. Press release issued April 11. www.pewtrusts.org/news_room_detail.aspx?id=37968. Accessed
[30] Pew Commission on Industrial Farm Animal Production. 2008. Putting meat on the table: industrial farm animal production in
[31] Wuethrich B. 2003. Chasing the fickle swine flu. Science 299:1502-5. http://birdflubook.org/resources/WUETHRICH1502.pdf.
[32] Webby RJ, Rossow K, Erickson G, Sims Y, and Webster R. 2004. Multiple lineages of antigenically and genetically diverse influenza A virus co-circulate in the
[33] Wuethrich B. 2003. Chasing the fickle swine flu. Science 299:1502-5. http://BirdFluBook.org/resources/WUETHRICH1502.pdf.
Pigs confined in gestation cages (Photo: Farm Sanctuary on Flickr)
Even if global coverage on the potential swine flu pandemic may be an over-reaction, it’s clear that the outbreak is still a serious issue (which you can now follow via Google Maps). All things considered, the outbreak seems to be the tip of the proverbial iceberg. In addition to the other questionable agribusiness practices of “confined animal feeding operations” – a new study by the Soil Association suggests that the overuse of antibiotics could also be a major factor in creating antibiotic resistant super-pathogens (aside from the mutant strain of viral swine flu wreaking havoc now). These bacterial "superbugs" include:
...methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA, pronounced “mersa”), campylobacter, drug-resistant E. coli and salmonella. Though MRSA has cropped up in hospitals since the 1990s, there have been more recent strains cropping up in on hog-farming operations.
Nicholas Kristof’s insightful New York Times column (which has already picked up on the likely connection between agribusiness' “insane overuse” of antibiotics and antibiotic-resistant bacteria back in March) cites these alarming statistics:
- A small Dutch study found Dutch pig farmers to be 760 times more likely to carry MRSA, without necessarily showing symptoms. Scientific American reports that this MRSA strain was also found in 12 percent of Dutch retail pork samples- This same strain of MRSA has also been found in the United States: according to a new study by University of Iowa epidemiologist Tara Smith, 45 percent of pig farmers and 49 percent of the hogs tested carried MRSA
- other research by Peter Davies of the University of Minnesota found that 25 percent to 39 percent of American hogs carry MRSA
So what is the link between this strain of antibiotic-resistant bacteria and the industrial farming complex? Well, for years many scientists have speculated that these massive, inhumane swine “factories” could become incubators for virulent super-pathogens that could quickly spread as a pandemic – whether it’s through direct contact, contaminated groundwater, or by air travel.
Thanks to the crowded and unhygienic conditions of these “factories”, animals are pumped full of antibiotics – the prerequisite for antibiotic resistant organisms and a potential public health crisis. According to a study by the Union of Concerned Scientists, seventy percent of all antibiotics in the U.S. go to healthy livestock, while a 2008 peer-reviewed study by the Medical Clinics of North America concluded that antibiotics in livestock feed were “a major component” in the rise in antibiotic resistance.
“We don’t give antibiotics to healthy humans,” says Robert Martin, who led a Pew Commission investigating antibiotic use on industrial farms. “So why give them to healthy animals just so we can keep them in crowded and unsanitary conditions?”
Why? It’s because big agribusiness interests have been successful so far in preventing any legislation that could have banned the non-therapeutic use of antibiotics in the name of the bottom line. It’s cheaper to give drugs to animals, force them to live under appalling conditions, than to provide humane alternatives – and even cheaper to externalize ecological and health costs of such operations to countries like Mexico.
But what we could have here is a potential pandemic that knows no borders - and a potential opportunity to change the unsustainable industrial model of farming from an environmental and health threat - to one that could actually work. Though it might be too early to pinpoint conclusively the underlying factor(s), the abuse of antibiotics deserves some consideration in the larger scheme of things. The question is: will governments and consumers step up to the challenge of demanding better regulations, alternatives to excessive antibiotic use and more healthy and humane conditions from the agribusiness industry?
The outbreak of a new flu strain - the H1N1 flu virus, a mixture of human, pig and avian flu viruses, has resulted in over 100 human casualties in Mexico alone with increasing numbers of cases being confirmed around the world.
Did intensive farming cause the latest threat of a flu pandemic?
The UN is now warning of a potential pandemic. Although the source of the new virus strain is currently unknown, experts have warned for years of the potential risks posed to human health as a result of factory farming methods and the development of highly pathogenic viruses.
Philip Lymbery, Chief Executive of Compassion in World Farming, said "This is clearly a serious situation. Although it is too early to know for sure where this latest virus has come from, it makes good sense to question the wisdom of the large-scale factory farming of animals, which surely provides an ideal pressure-cooker breeding ground for new and dangerous strains of disease."
In factory farms, thousands of pigs are crammed together in darkened sheds where they spend their lives often covered in filth on concrete and slatted floors. In such conditions, disease can spread rapidly and in each shed there are multiple opportunities for the viruses to mutate as they move from pig to pig.
Slurry, a mix of pig faeces and urine, drains through the slatted floors and collects in huge stinking lagoons.
In 2005, Compassion in World Farming filmed at such a farm in Poland, which was owned by US giant, Smithfield.
Previous large scale disease outbreaks, such as the 2001 Foot and Mouth outbreak in the UK, led to mass slaughter of animals in order to control the disease. Compassion in World Farming is concerned that, should such measures be deemed necessary in this case, they may result in significant animal suffering. Compassion in World Farming is therefore in communication with world animal health authorities to ensure that any emergency slaughter of animals is not only swift, but also efficient and humane.
The H1N1 virus was first discovered in a North Carolina factory farm in 1998. The virus has circulated in pig populations for decades, and is now one of the most common causes of respiratory disease on North American pig farms.
Dr. Robert Webster, one of the world’s leading experts of flu virus evolution, blames the emergence of the 1998 virus on the "recently evolving intensive farming practice in the USA, of raising pigs and poultry in adjacent sheds with the same staff," a practice he calls "unsound."
The New Scientist has described the rapidly intensifying European pig industry as "a recipe for disaster." The high numbers and concentrations of animals on many factory farms give a virus greater opportunity to mutate into highly pathogenic forms. Read more on their site...
A European Commission-funded researcher studying the situation in Europe stated that “influenza [in pigs] is closely correlated with pig density”. The European Commission’s agricultural directorate warns that the “concentration of production is giving rise to an increasing risk of disease epidemics”.
Compassion in World Farming has previously assessed the role of factory farming in the development and spread of avian influenza and found that the high densities on many chicken farms have been a significant contributing factor. Transport of farm animals over long distances may also contribute to the spread of diseases. According to experts, the rapid dissemination of the 1998 swine flu outbreak in the US was a result of long-distance live animal transport.
Proof of paid-for climate denial at the Global Climate Coalition comes as no surprise, but it is no less depressing for that
There are three kinds of climate change denier. There are those who simply don't want to accept the evidence, because it is too much to bear, or because it threatens aspects of their lives that they don't want to change. These are by far the most numerous, and account for most of those whose comments will follow this post.
I have some sympathy for their position. Denial is most people's first response to something they don't want to hear, whether it is a diagnosis of terminal illness or the threat presented by the rise of the Axis Powers. The moral, intellectual and practical challenge of climate change is unprecedented. The urge to duck it almost irresistible.
Then there is a smaller group of people - almost all men, generally in their sixties or above - who are not paid for their stance, but who have achieved a little post-retirement celebrity through well-timed controversialism. It has kept David Bellamy in the news, long after his wonderful career on television sadly (and wrongly, in my view) ended. It has lent more recognition to people like Philip Stott and Tim Ball than anything they published during their academic careers. It attracts adoring fanmail (from people in category one) for journalists like Christopher Booker and Melanie Philips. It permits men like Lord Monckton to indulge their fantasies of single-handedly rescuing humanity from its own idiocy. Their intellectual acrobatics are as blatant as that of the people in the third category, but they appear to be driven by vanity, not cash.
The third category consists of those who are paid to deny that climate change is happening. Patrick Michaels and Steve Milloy, whose work for fossil fuel companies has been repeatedly exposed, are good examples. There are probably a few paid stooges contributing to the Guardian's discussion threads as well.
Even when the risk of exposure is high, journalists working for newspapers, television or radio have secretly taken money from undisclosed interests to champion their views. Fossil fuel companies have inserted their message into every medium by means of hired hands who don't reveal their sources of funding. Why would they not take advantage of the anonymity of these threads? Some of the contributers here are astroturfers, but we'll probably never know which ones they are.
Whenever you challenge anyone in categories two or three, they come over all innocent, claiming that the science is unsettled, that the other side are all liars, and all they are doing is telling the public what it needs to hear. Anyone who has taken the trouble to read the reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change or who subscribes to Science or Nature knows that they cannot possibly believe this, or are able to believe it only by tying their minds into such elaborate knots that they have succeeded in deceiving themselves.
We knew it, but we couldn't prove it. But now we have a smoking gun. Last week the New York Times revealed that the Global Climate Coalition, the industry-funded body that led the campaign to persuade people that manmade climate wasn't happening, knew all along that it was. In 1995 its own experts warned that:
The scientific basis for the Greenhouse Effect and the potential impact of human emissions of greenhouse gases such as CO2 on climate is well established and cannot be denied … The contrarian theories raise interesting questions about our total understanding of climate processes, but they do not offer convincing arguments against the conventional model of greenhouse gas emission-induced climate change
It seems to me that the real suckers in this story are the media organisations - the BBC and Channel 4 are the outstanding examples - that gave 15 years of free access to companies like ExxonMobil, by inviting their paid experts to "balance" the views of genuine scientists, without demanding that they disclosed their sources. (Channel 4 appears determined to continue being suckered).
They had only to look at Exxon's annual accounts to see that the people they introduced as independent experts were neither expert nor independent. But they chose not to, as fake controversy provided better copy than the boring old scientific consensus. Now we know just how fake it was.
(Alexandre Meneghini/AP)
Edgar Hernandez, 4, is said to have made a full recovery from swine flu
Image :1 of 2
Posts
All Comments
