Beyond Swine Flu - Could Factory Farms Be the Cause of the Next Man-Made Pandemic?

As the hysteria surrounding the swine flu begins to subside, so do the unanswered questions about the origin of the disease. While a 24-hour news cycle incessantly tallies each and every victim, few networks have reported on the possible source of the outbreak.

In a scenario we see all too often whenever new viruses emerge, nearly every aspect of this outbreak is overly sensationalized. The same thing happened when several isolated cases of avian flu, Monkeypox, West Nile and SARS made daily headlines.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not minimizing the loss of life and agree it is important to monitor disease outbreaks regardless of size. But shouldn't these repetitive reports be kept in perspective, particularly in a country where good hygiene and medical care is available?

Ever since the swine flu scare became a "breaking news" story there has been very little coverage on the suspicion that its origin may be the byproduct of unregulated corporate greed, otherwise known as concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs), or factory farms.

For the most part, the mainstream media have been "missing in action" (again) on the swine flu/Smithfield connection. A few networks and newspapers have given the possible connection a brief mention, but for the most part, internet reporters are the ones putting together the pieces.

It was Tom Philpott, food editor for Grist, who first broke the story that the origin of the swine flu outbreak may be connected to a concentrated animal feeding operation owned by a subsidiary of Smithfield Foods.

In his article, Philpott starts a timeline and notes an April 6th quote from a government disease tracking website, Biosurveillance. The quote came from scientist Dr. James Wilson who wrote:

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 farm. (April 6)

Following up on Philpott's story, investigative journalist David Kirby added fuel to the Smithfield fire, in back-to-back Huffington Post articles:

On Sunday, the state government of Veracruz confirmed swine influenza in a five-year-old girl in the village of La Gloria, located near a massive US-owned hog facility...And in the western state of Guerroro, 500 pigs were just killed after becoming ill with swine flu. (April 27)

Mexican health Secretary Jose Angel Cordova announced Monday evening that officials have identified who they believe to be the earliest known case of the swine flu outbreak: A four-year-old boy in the village of LaGloria, Veracruz, near the huge Granjas Carroll hog operation, which is co-owned by Smithfield Foods of Virginia. (April 28)

In one of the most nauseatingly graphic depictions, Rolling Stone's Jeff Tietz, brilliantly describes the conditions and consequences of what has become the inhumane agribusiness of animal food production.

Through his investigation of Smithfield Foods, Tietz exposes the "dirty secret of the nations top hog producer" and explains how the confinement of hundreds of thousands of animals in over-crowded, unsanitary conditions, also produces millions of tons of animal waste that damages the ecosystems in nearby communities and poses a real and ongoing threat to human health:

The 500,000 pigs at a single Smithfield subsidiary in Utah generate more fecal matter each year than the 1.5 million inhabitants of Manhattan. The best estimates put Smithfield's total waste discharge at 26 million tons a year. That would fill four Yankee Stadiums.

So many of its contractors allow great volumes of waste to run out of their slope-floored barns and sit blithely in the open, untreated, where the elements break it down and gravity pulls it into groundwater and river systems."

Smithfield's holding ponds -- the company calls them lagoons -- cover as much as 120,000 square feet. The area around a single slaughterhouse can contain hundreds of lagoons, some of which run thirty feet deep. The liquid in them is not brown. The interactions between the bacteria and blood and afterbirths and stillborn piglets and urine and excrement and chemicals and drugs turn the lagoons pink.

These grotesque swampy lagoons pollute the soil and release noxious fumes into the air causing adverse health effects in farm workers and residents of nearby communities. It should not be surprising that factory farms, like Smithfield's, provide a perfect incubator-like environment for new and virulent viruses.

In addition to the filthy conditions, animals are routinely fed artificial hormones to promote faster, unnatural growth and antibiotics to stave off diseases prior to slaughter.

The immobility, poisonous air and terror of confinement badly damage the pigs' immune systems. They become susceptible to infection, and in such dense quarters microbes or parasites or fungi, once established in one pig, will rush spritelike through the whole population. Accordingly, factory pigs are infused with a huge range of antibiotics and vaccines, and are doused with insecticides. Without these compounds -- oxytetracycline, draxxin, ceftiofur, tiamulin -- diseases would likely kill them. Thus factory-farm pigs remain in a state of dying until they're slaughtered. When a pig nearly ready to be slaughtered grows ill, workers sometimes shoot it up with as many drugs as necessary to get it to the slaughterhouse under its own power. As long as the pig remains ambulatory, it can be legally killed and sold as meat.

Many health officials now suspect the overuse of antibiotics as feed additives may be producing antibiotic-resistant viruses and infections including methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, or MRSA.

Although MRSA does not receive a great deal of attention and is primarily associated with hospital-acquired staph infections, Centers for Disease Control (CDC) researchers have reported that MRSA is responsible for more deaths in the US each year than HIV/AIDS:

Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) was responsible for an estimated 94,000 life-threatening infections and 18,650 deaths in 2005, CDC researchers report in the Oct. 17 [2007] issue of The Journal of the American Medical Association.

And if all of this were not bad enough... we, the public, with our insatiable demand for inexpensive meat and poultry, are paying for the propagation of these industrial farms through taxpayer supported government subsidies.

For years, the CDC has been making dire predictions about the next deadly flu pandemic.

Similarly, concerns about the possible health affects caused by CAFOs have been around for years as well:

Scientists, medical personnel and public health officials have been sounding the alarm on these issues for some time. The World Health Organization and the Food and Agriculture Organization(FAO) have recommended restrictions on agricultural uses of antibiotics; the American Public Health Association(APHA) proposed a moratorium on CAFOs back in 2003. All told, more than 350 professional organizations -- including the APHA, American Medical Association, the Infectious Diseases Society of America, and the American Academy of Pediatrics-- have called for greater regulation of antibiotic use in livestock. The Infectious Diseases Society of America has declared antibiotic-resistant infections an epidemic in the United States. The FAO recently warned that global industrial meat production poses a serious threat to human health. (The Hidden Link Between Factory Farms and Human Illness, Mother Earth News Feb/March 2009)

Predictably, any association between CAFOs and diseases, like the swine flu, now called H1N1 for obvious reasons, are summarily discounted and vehemently denied by Smithfield executives.

As is all too often the case, when it comes to government action, or the lack of it, protecting human health always takes a back seat to big business. Powerful lobbyists looking after their client's interests are one reason why you are unlikely to hear too much on the Smithfield connection from flu fretting government and public health officials.

Rather than rein in factory farm operations and force them to clean up the polluted cesspools, the government's response to this current public health crisis is a predictable one...to once again dispense billions of taxpayer dollars for the development and production of yet another vaccine...a very sweet deal for vaccine manufacturer, which will likely include liability protection for a faulty vaccine.

For those that don't remember, it was the death of one Fort Dix soldier, Pvt. David Lewis, and the hospitalization of four other soldiers who contracted swine flu in 1976 that set off a national panic and what was described by many as a public health "fiasco."

The government, along with a gentle nudge from the drug companies, thought the answer to the swine flu was to quickly develop a vaccine and then vaccinate 220 million Americans. Unfortunately, the vaccine ended up permanently injuring and killing hundreds more than the swine flu.

Although officials won't admit it, vaccine manufacturers are often cited for "good manufacturing practice violations" in warning letters known as Pink Sheets. Because of this, I have real concerns when I hear that a vaccine is the government's best medicine to combat any disease, and there is a possibility the government intends to mandate such a vaccine.

Just last March, Baxter International Inc., was caught exporting the live avian flu virus in vaccines sent to medical facilities in 18 countries:

Baxter International Inc. in Austria 'unintentionally contaminated samples with the bird flu virus that were used in laboratories in 3 neighbouring countries, raising concern about the potential spread of the deadly disease'. Austria, Germany, Slowenia and the Czech Republic - these are the countries in which labs were hit with dangerous viruses. Not by bioterrorist commandos, but by Baxter. In other words: One of the major global pharmaceutical players seems to have lost control over a virus which is considered by many virologists to be one of the components leading some day to a new pandemic.

With no one asking any questions about Baxter's little "mistake," especially not the mainstream media, the company is now working hard with the World Health Organization on a swine flu vaccine.

Simply developing a new vaccine doesn't address the real threat, and could, as we saw in 1976, actually do more harm than good.

Viruses are always mutating which means the millions of vaccines created today may not work tomorrow. We hear this almost every year with the influenza vaccine. Often the vaccine developed dose not match the influenza strain and the miss-match renders the vaccine ineffective, if it was ever effective, or safe, to begin with.

This government has a bad habit of failing to react until disaster strikes and then opting for the "quick fix".

As the government and health officials review the country's ability to respond to the next pandemic flu, it would be irresponsible for them not to investigate these toxic disease breeding grounds and whether the public is being put at risk because of the proliferation of powerful pollution profiteers like Smithfield.

And while they are at it, they might also want to consider whether the best preventative medicine might not lie within a vaccine syringe but rather with tighter regulations on industrial factory farms.

Comments

[DPieper]

No wonder there is such a gap between consumers and the farmers who raise the food. With articles like this that mislead people about the facts I would be afraid to eat ANYTHING!! I am a cattle producer and I consume the same products that everyone else does. I know first hand how those animals are cared for. We do our very best to raise animals in a safe environment so that you can purchase a safe product at the grocery store. I don't generally read articles like this that pass on misleading information to scare people but all too often farmers and ranchers are left out of the discussion. Hog producers are under some of the strictest regulations to make sure that the animals, environment and people stay safe.

[Helke]

I wouldn't exactly refer to CAFOs as "farms" in the traditional sense. Please watch the documentary "Food,Inc.". We seriously need to rethink how food is produced, as what is going on now with CAFOs or factory farms is not sustainable in any way, and only damages our health (never mind that of the animals) and our environment for future (?) generations.
http://www.foodincmovie.com/

[Glenn Brunkow]

Ms. Imus, this is just another example of sensationalizing a story in order to gain readership. Most of the "facts" and "sources" quoted in this article are taken out of context or are from heavily articles heavily slanted against modern agriculture production. I for one am a proud neighbor of a swine CAFO. I have absolutely no concern about the health of my family and our close distance to this operation. They are good stewards of their animals and the environment. Next time you write a column it would be good if you took the time to do some research and look at both sides of an issue.

[Tiffany-NH]

Being a farmer I take pride in producing the safest product I can for my customers the American public. I take the best care I can of my animals I can, one of the best place to raise animals is inside in a controlled environment.

[FamilyFarmer]

A recent study done by the Univesity of Missouri entitled Hog Manure & Domestice Wastewater Managment Objectives proves humans create more waste than hogs, at a ratio of 125:1. Imus didn't have accurate information in claiming hogs generate more fecal matter each year than the 1.5 million inhabitants of Manhattan

"As an example of the volumes involved, the city of Columbia, Missouri (population 92,000) handles 16 million gallons of wastewater each day, or about 175 gallons per person per day. The Metropolitan St. Louis Sewer District (population 1,400,000) handles 360 million gallons of wastewater each day, or about 255 gallons per person per day. For hogs, total manure & wastewater production averages about 1.4 gallons per animal per day for grow-finish operations. Daily wastewater production for 1,000# of humams is 1,170 gallons/day compared with 9.3 gallons per day for 1,000# of hogs. It would take 5.3 million to 11.4 million hogs to produce the same volume of manure and wastewater as the volume of wastewater the city of Columbia treats in 1 day. "

http://extension.missouri.edu/publications/DisplayPub.aspx?P=EQ349

[FamilyFarmer]

The WHO (World Health Organization) also recommended Asian countries follow the US and start housing their animals in climate controlled barns that prevent the spread of diseases.

And, antibiotics are expensive, our livestock don't carry health insurance. Farmers can not afford to misuse antibiotics. Animals housed in modern barns require fewer antibiotics than animals raised outdoors. I know, we used to raise our hogs outdoors and they were always sick or catching something the neighbor's hogs had the week prior. Our vet bill is much less today than it was when our hogs ran outdoors and wallowed in their own manure.

[Droversguy]

You lash out at the media because, although they ran around hysterically spreading panic, their intense investigations did not return the results that you hoped for. Without facts or science or proof of any kind, you desperately want there to be connection between H1N1 and Smithfield. When that didn’t happen you simply dismiss your own liberal, activist media as missing in action.

First of all, you hate factory farms but it is modern livestock production facilities that actually prevent the spread of disease and viruses. Modern livestock facilities protect animals from wildlife and pest, keep them cool and clean and minimize the exchange of germs and viruses. It is animals roaming around freely, coming in to contact with people and wild animals that spread disease.

Livestock producers are among the most heavily regulated business while providing huge economic benefits to their communities. You will not find a single livestock operation that has been built with out going through a strict permitting process and having to adhere to ongoing rules on waste management.

The cities where you live manages to treat your waste and filth. So why is it hard to believe farmers can't do an even better job with a consistant, organic nutrient source?

Oh and while you are monitoring death tolls… how many people on earth die of starvation? What's going to happen when we reach 7 billion people in 2012? Or 9 billion by 2050?

[mikeeber]

You’re right, there is good evidence that industrial farming has serious adverse effects on human health. But I want to clear up a misstatement: Use of antibiotics on farms has not been associated with antibiotic­-resistant viruses, as antibiotics are not effective against viruses to begin with. Drugs used to treat viral infections are called antivirals, and these drugs work very differently than the antibiotics used to treat bacterial infections.

Here’s the important part, and a point I appreciate your making--use of antibiotics on farms is likely a substantial source of the drug-resistant bacteria that now plague human medicine. For a detailed explanation see: http://extendingthecure.org/blog/drug-resistant-bacteria-food-animals

[KyFarmersMatter]

Perhaps you missed the WHO (World Health Organization) statement made during the "pandemic" declaration. There is no scientific link of your accusations. Science Based, Not Junk Science Based.

[FamilyFarmer]

This commentary is based off inaccurate propaganda. Hogs owned by Smithfield didn't have H1N1, & you can’t catch H1N1 from eating pork. The bigger concern is HUMANS giving livestock H1N1.

I am a Family Farmer & I know first hand how my livestock & land are cared for. Science and technology have improved over the years to make medicine better. The same is true for farming. Farmers & veterinarians work daily with animals but are left out of this discussion. American Farmers moved to modern barns in the 70's - to protect our food supply. We eat the same food as consumers, we wouldn’t feed our kids food that wasn’t safe. Safe animals produce safe food. If our livestock were outside, they could catch diseases carried by wildlife. By housing livestock in barns, we prevent predator attacks & diseases tracked by wildlife. Hogs can not sweat, modern barns keep them cool in the summer, and warm in the winter. The barns have flush systems in them like the toilet in your house. When bird flu hit Asia, US flocks were protected from the bird flu which is transmitted by birds and their droppings.

We follow strict regulations to provide safety for our animals and environment. We monitor daily rainfall, and we test our soil & manure, which is used as natural fertilizer to grow hay. Our farm is regulated by EPA but what inspires me to protect my land is my passion to pass my farm onto my kids in

[davebeynon]

Full of insight, Ms Imus, thank you. Unfortunately, the mainstream US and UK news haven't dwelled on the subject as long as you have. They will most likely only do so when the consequences of the current or next pandemic become a great deal more serious and widespread.

Last month, Compassion in World Farming produced a paper on the role of factory farming in the cause and spread of swine influenza. It is not exactly light reading but it is a fully referenced 10 page report available on the website: ciwf.org/s­wineflu_re­port_05050­9

[amandastories]

Thank you for continuing to try to get the mainstream media to be accurate and accountable. Thank you for the time and energy and expertise you put into your research! Our family doesn't want the flu...our family doesn't want the vaccine, and our family doesn't want the factory farms!!!

[cafofighter]

Ms. Imus, you provided a very well researched and authoritative article on the CAFO scourge that has erupted in the USA and around the World. The only way to counter these corporate hogs is to get the word out--once folks know the truth they will not eat the meat produced by these giant animal concentration camps. Keep up the good work.

PS Good web-site at closeanima­lfactories­.org

[audadvnc]

An example from history - "Fordlandia", Henry Ford's rubber plantation/factory in South America. By intensively planting rubber trees in large acreage, his factory farm promoted the growth of pests that destroyed the rubber crop. Ford Motor Company never got useful rubber from that plantation.