What Airports and Factory Farms Have in Common: The Possible Smithfield/Swine Flu Connection

Last Monday, as I boarded a commercial flight, I sneezed. I had sneezed in the car on the way to the airport, and I would sneeze more throughout the day. On my way to the W.K Kellogg Foundation's Food & Society conference, a gathering of nearly 600 "good food" advocates, and excited about the trip, I chalked my sneezes up to allergies and several hours later, checked into a hotel in San Jose and commenced to mingle with about 600 of my cohorts. We were there to discuss solutions to the problems that ail our collective and industrialized food system, one that has had a troubling couple of years in the public health arena, having been linked to epidemics like obesity and diabetes, and outbreaks of infectious diseases like E. coli and salmonella.

Wednesday afternoon, near the end of the conference, I started feeling feverish and headachy and my "allergies" theory began to wear thin. I took some aspirin and though I hated to, I ducked out of the after-dinner socializing hours earlier than I normally would have. The next morning I woke with a ragingly stuffy head and there was no denying that I was sick. As one who cringes at others who even sniffle on planes, I started feeling guilty about the afternoon's flights home, in the recycled air, next to some unsuspecting stranger.

Saturday, as the news broke about the swine flu, the Facebook pages of friends I saw at the conference started mentioning that they were sick, too. As I pushed back nagging questions about whether or not the incubation period of this flu meant it could be much more widespread than suspected, perhaps enough to have infected us, it became clear that whatever we did all have was contagious.

As public health authorities around the world began to sound the alarm about the swine flu I was busy convincing myself I didn't have, so too did the crowd I'd been rubbing shoulders with in California, issuing forth a flurry of emails with links to evidence that pointed to industrial pork production practices as the likely cause of the outbreak. Tom Philpott of Grist cites the Mexican newspaper La Marcha, which in an April 15th article names a likely suspect in the hog farms run by Granjas Carroll, a subsidiary of Smithfield, the largest pork processor in the world and the subject of the 2006 Rolling Stone article Boss Hog (which points to Smithfield, among other things, as one of the worst polluters on the globe.)

Here's the connection: if a commercial flight is a prime breeding ground for airborne infectious disease, consider the digs of modern hogs. Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs), also known as factory farms, bring together tens of thousands of animals in quarters that make a sold-out 747 look spacious. Keeping a cap on disease in such conditions has risen to a sort of macabre art form involving the use of antibiotics (including the "non-therapeutic" use, which means that they feed the animals antibiotics as a preventative measure) to ward off the infectious diseases you might expect to thrive in such a place. This practice has been linked to the spread of drug-resistant MRSA bacteria, but is not likely the cause of the influenza outbreak. Manure lagoons, the gigantic receptors for the millions of gallons of excrement expelled by the thousands of animals, may be the more likely culprit. To quote Tom Philpott's "rough translation" of the La Marcha article published back on April 15:

The article goes on to say that area residents have long complained of "fetid odors" in the air and water, and swarms of flies hovering around waste lagoons. Like their counterparts who live in CAFO-heavy U.S. areas, they also complain of respiratory ailments. Now, with 30 percent of the area's residents now infected with the virulent flu bug, people are demanding that state and federal authorities inspect hog operations there.

The Guardian, which is now reporting that 60 per cent of La Gloria's population have fallen ill, backs up the CAFO connection thusly:

In 1965, for instance, there were 53m US hogs on more than 1m farms; today, 65m hogs are concentrated in 65,000 facilities. This has been a transition from old-fashioned pig pens to vast excremental hells, containing tens of thousands of animals with weakened immune systems suffocating in heat and manure while exchanging pathogens at blinding velocity with their fellow inmates.

Smithfield released a statement Sunday denying the evidence of swine flu in its Mexican operations.

Yesterday, the World Health Organization (WHO) raised the pandemic threat level from 3 to 4 on a scale of 6, and today they say it "can no longer be contained," with confirmed cases throughout Asia, in Israel and New Zealand. Authorities around the globe seem to share my airport worries, as surgical masks sell out and travelers are screened and quarantined. In the meantime, many governments have placed emergency bans on North American pork products, Smithfield's stock has taken a dive, and the American mainstream media are blowing up with breaking information but so far, few have reported on the Smithfield connection except to repeat the company's denial of responsibility or the drop in stock prices (CNN Money and The New York Times have touched on but not delved into the subject).

Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack was quick to point out early on that consumers are still safe to eat pork, but the statement begs the questions, who wants to eat meat from animals who are jammed in together the majority of their lives, their excrement at best degrading waterways and polluting the air and at worst, the cause of a global influenza pandemic?

Eddie Gehman Kohan is reminding readers at Obama Foodorama that "[l]ocal and regional food sourcing is also a better model in terms of general food safety (we currently are capable of inspecting less than one percent of our own imported foods)," and although in the face of this public health crisis, eating local might seem a laughable solution, it seems abundantly clear that industrial agriculture practices leave animals, workers, the general public and the environment at risk in ways that localized systems may not, and that the mainstream media (and while we're at it, international lawmakers) should be taking a long hard look at the laws that allow for such practices and the companies that profit on account of them.

As for me, my cough is hanging on but my fever broke days ago and I doubt it was the swine flu. I hope it wasn't because if it was, we're a lot worse off than authorities expect, and the fact that I spent time in four different airports last week means that I likely infected many more people, in spite of my best efforts to wash my hands, cover my mouth and nose while sneezing and coughing.

Imagine how many pigs I could have infected if I'd spent last week in a CAFO.

Related links:

The Humane Society's Factory Farming Campaign

David Kirby on The Huffington Post

A roundup of online resources for tracking the swine flu at CNET

The Pew Commission's Occupational and Community Public Health Impacts of Industrial Farm Animal Production (PDF -- see pg 13 for info on the generation of novel viruses)

Originally posted on The Green Fork.

Follow Leslie Hatfield on Twitter: www.twitter.com/lesliehatfield

Comments

[sposton]

This is the end result of our free enterprise (capitalism) running amok. When profits are the determining factor in everything we do the system will produce profits to the detriment of everything else. Even our government's size is related to the bigness of our corporations. If you raise millions of hogs on a million small farms the potential for environmental damage is either negligible or nonexistent because the system's effects are highly diffused. The current methods concentrate for profit reasons and create the need for "big" government by their very nature. Where previously hog waste was diffused now it is concentrated. One creates no environmental or health threats and the other creates both. Where one could exist with small government the other cannot because you need EPA and all kinds of governmental agencies to deal with something that had not existed previously. The size of the government is directly related to the size of our corporations. That is contrary to all you may have heard from all that "conservative" propaganda. Our highly developed capitalist system is directly responsible form most that ails our country. Without a major reevaluation of its effects and possible systemic changes we will continue our path to destruction.

[mlaiuppa]

Whether it's a fishing trawler or an animal farm, if it has the word "Factory" attached to it, we need to do away with it.

[mudshark12]

I almost lost my dinner after reading about the "manure lagoon" ........sh­udder.....­.... what a concept! I think this sort of farming (CAFO) should be outlawed as well as their over-use of antibiotics in the pigs feed. It is no wonder that MRSA bacteria came into existence. Our society suffers from corporate greed in every sector, it sure wasn't like this when I was young.

[averagemaninthecountry]

Hmm. We think lagoons are really good ideas for people. Every small town has one, except for coastal cities that pipe sewage directly out to sea, all municipalities have some sort of bacteria based sewage system. Even isolated houses have septic tanks and disposal fields to health department standards.
About a decade ago, CAFO's were required to treat their waste just like you are required to treat yours. What's wrong with that?
One difference between the idealized "family farm" and the "factory farm" is that the waste from unconfined animals can be just left whereever it happens. Nature is all set up to solve waste problems.

[ashabot]

Besides being breeding grounds for all kinds of old and new mutating diseases, the methane from "manure ponds" is a MAJOR reason our global climate is wildly out of whack.

[wallyone]

At least hogs are not going through transportation terminals and mixing with animals that are flying all over the globe.

[andhakari]

America doesn't have to just accept this nonsense. Factory farms can be made illegal. There's nothing to prevent a return to family farming except the lobbyists from BIG AG.
The myth that family farms would increase food costs is based on ignoring threats to the environment and human health from poorly regulated corporate agriculture.
Other countries do much better. America doesn't have to act like a 3rd world country.

[KillTheMessenger]

Family farms do nothing to stop viruses from being exchanged between humans and pigs. The only thing that could do that would be robotic farmers (robot pigs are not exactly useful for human consumption :-)).

Having said that... properly regulated family farms would lead to better lives for the animals and better quality product. And if we are all willing to pay more for our pork, we can easily get there.

[berrycooda]

Might well blame it on former Pres. Bush....

He is getting blamed for everything else that is wrong.

They will probably dig far enough back and find someone who had
the swine flu before Jan. 20 2009 so they can blame the last Adm.

Anyway, this is just the beginning and everybody needs to do their share of
washing hands and other things that some people never did before...l­ike covering
their mouth when they cough or sneeze....
Main thing is to try to prevent spreading it around.
What is wrong with these animals and birds .... bird flu...chic­kens ...swine flu...pigs­...
etc...mad cows....Gu­ess it is time for PETA to do a better job...

[JumpingCholla]

What is wrong with these animals and birds? Can you read?

In 1965, for instance, there were 53m US hogs on more than 1m farms; today, 65m hogs are concentrated in 65,000 facilities. This has been a transition from old-fashioned pig pens to vast excremental hells, containing tens of thousands of animals with weakened immune systems suffocating in heat and manure while exchanging pathogens at blinding velocity with their fellow inmates.

The same is true for chickens. and boo effing hoo about the bush administration being blamed. They're blamed because they're blameworthy. Their "let business do anything it wants to without regulation" policies are to blame for more than you could even grasp.

[blimie]

Eating meat from these animal food factories is going to make us sick. The conditions are filthy and inhumane. The animal factories are making the surrounding community ill. Sick animals are loaded up with antibiotics and hormones and we eat this stuff moring noon and night. We could eat less meat and from animals raised with a small amount of humanity.

[KillTheMessenger]

It's a mild form of flu... why is everybody getting so upset about this? And the same connection between the flu virus, humans and pigs and birds is thousands of years old, if not older. So what, exactly, is the story?

[jgrayson]

Great post! Just as the ancient Jews and Muslims considered their surroundings and the consequences of raising pigs as livestock when formulating their dietary laws — insufficient environmental resources like water, unsanitary conditions that could lead to disease — we, too, must now seriously look at the environmental repercussions of widespread factory farming. With the looming threat of a worldwide influenza pandemic that could very well have originated from the farming practices that supply your morning Egg McMuffin, we have to ask ourselves: Is it worth it?

http://theredwhiteandgreen.com/2009/04/28/swine-flu-and-the-origins-of-kosher-law/

[Marnie1]

Your discussion is rather difficult to follow. You claim that you and a number of other attendees to a conference were exposed to a cold germ at the conference, and then infer that because of that, airplanes are "breeding grounds for airborne diseases."
I have yet to see any indication that the current swine flu has been communicated on an airline.

Additionally, the "breeding ground" for human infections from bacteria or virus is the human body. These organisms do not "breed" inside airplanes.

Then you jump over to pig farms and MRSA and excrement. Swine flu is a respiratory virus. Methacyllin Resistant Staphylococcus aureus is a bacteria. Staph. aureus is most commonly found in the respiratory system. So what is the connection with excrement?

The avian flu that has become so serious over the last few years was not born in a factory farm but on small farms in Asia. In other words Factory Farms are not the issue in terms of when a pathogen will mutate sufficiently to jump species, in these two cases animal to human, and 1) survive, 2) thrive, 3) be pathogenic.

In fact todays news indicates the “swine’ flu variety that we are dealing with may well be a natural hybrid of swine, avian, and human flus.

[freeUSofcorp]

What you said makes a lot of sense, thanks for the clarity that I was unable to see but actually does seem to be correct.
I still think her story of how pigs are raised really makes me sick and question why anyone would want to eat any meat raised this way.

[kendrakimbirauskas]

Nice post Leslie! Thanks for making the factory farm connection! The arrogance of these companies to think that they can treat animals like machines, house them in disgusting conditions and not expect some horrific sci-fi like outcome. I guess the hens (or shall I say industrial pigs) have finally come home to roost. I just hope that we can get the pandemic under control before more innocent people perish. I hope that if it is found that Smithfield's deplorable swine factories are the source or even contributed to the outbreak, the corporate CEOs, their boards and shareholders are held responsible for every single illness and death that their industrial pig production practices have caused.

Let's buck the factory farm system and find a local farmer for our meat!

[dayala]

hear, hear!

I stopped eating pork 15 yrs ago when I learned about Smithfield operations. They have spread their
animal confinement tentacles all over the globe, Poland, Mexico and other countries with disastrous effects on the environment and human health. They buy off all the government and public officials just like they do here in Congress.

we have the POWER to put them out of business no matter WHO they have in their pockets.
I urge EVERY AMERICAN TO BOYCOTT SMITHFIELD!

if you MUST EAT PORK, find a local farmer/producer.
http://www.localharvest.org/


or order online:
Niman Ranch
http://www.nimanranch.com/index.aspx

Polyface Farms:
http://polyfacefarms.com/

[dapperd72]

The simple moral of the story, as always, is GO VEGAN! Tom Vilsack is predictably DEAD WRONG to advise anyone that it's "safe" to eat pig flesh, nor any other nonhuman animal's rotting flesh for that matter. I see so-called "swine flu" as just another modern example of instant karma and, as Malcolm X would say, "the chickens coming home to roost." Even those who never eat pig's flesh who contract this epidemic are likely responsible in some direct way for their own fate. By eating the Standard American Diet of flesh, dairy and eggs, they slash their immunity far below what it be if they ate a natural frugivorous diet as Nature intended for all primates. The factory farms created by the agribusiness industry are humanity's modern concentration camps where nonhumans are subjected to many of the worst atrocities committed by human beings against them which most of us would never tolerate between members of our own species. Go to www.humanemyth.org for more information.
If you want to really accelerate your immunity beyond a vegan diet, go raw and eat as much of your diet from organically grown ripe fruits and vegetables as possible. I reckon Stephen King was prophetic in his classic novel, "The Stand," in which he described the "Superflu" with profound political, social and public health consequences.

[katielady]

Leslie, the agriculture business is worse in countries like Mexico. and.... Americans aren't sneaking across the border to get jobs.. and taking their chickens with them..

[cucumber]

The factory farming system is not worse in Mexico. There's nowhere to fall from hell, and factory farming is pure hell for animals in both countries. www.meetyourmeat.comt.com http://www.whyvegan.com http://www.factoryfarming.com - all in the good old USA.

[catlover68]

Where is the compassion of all the "so called animal lovers?"
People are dying, also animals so you can eat BBQ, or whatever "the other white meat dish" you choose to cook. How can anyone be surprised this is happening??
It pisses me off not only because I love animals, and chose to quit eating them years ago, but my immune system is terrible thanks to 25 years of M.S. and the various immune suppressing treatments + chemo I've had to take for it.
Quit blaming immigrants and look at the food you are eating. I know you don't get swine flu from eating meat......­it's contact with infected animals...­..raised so you can continue your standard "meat & potatoes" diet......­........du­h.........­.

[unlikelykitten]

I haven't eaten factory pork in years. I wish more people were as consious of this problem.