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For centuries,
the Guangdong province of China has had the world's largest concentration
of humans, pigs and fowl living in close proximity.[5] In this environment,
pigs can become co-infected with both human and avian (bird) strains
of influenza. When this happens, a deadly gene swapping can take
place, in which the lethality of viral strains rampant in the Chinese
poultry industry[6] can combine which the human transmissibility
of the human strains to create new mutated flu viruses capable of
infecting and killing people on a global scale.[7]
Other viral
threats besides influenza have also escaped from Southeast Asian
livestock operations. In 1999, a new virus, now known as the Nipah
virus, jumped from pigs to humans in Malaysia, infecting pig breeders
and killing about a hundred people before it was stamped out.[8]
In the Southern Chinese province of Guangdong, battery chickens
are sometimes kept directly above pig pens, depositing their waste
right into the pigs' food troughs.[9] It may come no surprise, then,
that Guangdong is thought to have been ground zero for the deadly
SARS virus as well.[10] The Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS)
virus is just the latest in a string of human tragedies traced back
to our appetite for animal flesh.
According to
the World Health Organization, SARS, which has already infected
thousands worldwide, could become the "first severe new disease
of the 21st century with global epidemic potential."[11] And
experts are again blaming intensive animal agriculture.[12,13,14,15]
According to China's equivalent of the Centers for Disease Control,
the first people to succumb to the SARS virus were bird vendors
and chefs, who had been in close and continued contact with chickens,
ducks and other birds.[16]
Scientists have
identified SARS as a coronavirus, a class of viruses well known
to the livestock industry.[17] Coronaviruses are found in many feedlot
cattle who die of pneumonia and are responsible for the respiratory
disease known as shipping fever in cattle stressed by transport.[18]
There's currently a new mutant strain of coronavirus causing outbreaks
of a contagious pneumonia on pig farms in several countries.[19]
Preliminary work, though, suggests the SARS virus is more related
to the one that causes lung infections in chickens.[20]
The concentration
of animals with weakened immune systems in unsanitary conditions
seems inherent to factory farming. As intensive livestock operations
continue to spread worldwide, so will viral breeding grounds.[21]
Moving away from intensive animal agriculture and towards more sustainable
plant-based methods of production may benefit the health of the
planet and its inhabitants in more ways than we know.
 [1]
Daily GC, Ehrlich PR. Development, Global Change, and the Epidemiological
Environment. Stanford, CA: Stanford University; 1995. Paper #0062.
[2] Kiple KF, editor. The Cambridge World History of Human Disease.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; 1993.
[3] The Straits Times (Singapore) ,March 21, 2003.
[4] Ibid.
[5] Time, April 7, 2003.
[6] The Straits Times (Singapore), March 21, 2003.
[7] Courier Mail (Australia) ,April 12, 2003.
[8] South China Morning Post, April 9, 2003.
[9] Sydney Morning Herald, April 7, 2003
[10] Time, April 7, 2003.
[11] The Atlanta Journal and Constitution, April 12, 2003.
[12] TB & Outbreaks Week, April 15, 2003.
[13] The Toronto Sun, March 28, 2003.
[14] New Scientist, April 03, 2003.
[15] Courier Mail (Australia), April 12, 2003.
[16] The Michigan Daily, April 09, 2003.
[17] New England Journal of Medicine, April 10, 2003.
[18] Santa Fe New Mexican (New Mexico), April 6, 2003.
[19] Ibid.
[20] New Scientist, April 03, 2003.
[21] Time, April 7, 2003.
 Dr.
Greger is a general practitioner specializing in vegetarian
nutrition. He is author of Heart
Failure: Diary of a Third Year Medical Student and has contributed
to a number of books on veganism and food safety issues. Dr. Greger
is a graduate of the Cornell University School of Agriculture and
the Tufts University School of Medicine.
Visit
Dr. Greger's website at http://www.VeganMD.org.
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