Swine flu and some of the things that got us here

As you can tell from our dedicated page on swine flu it is a subject that is pretty dominant in people’s minds these days which is pretty understandable. Yet for all our concern about what is happening right now throughout the world in regards to the spread and effects of the swine flu it is also important to look at how we possibly got to this point.

It is a common understanding that the swine flu that we are currently dealing with is a combination of swine flu, avian flu and human flu but where does the swine part of the mix come from and why. There is a growing thought that much of the blame for this variation of the swine flu can be traced to the industrial hog farming operations that exist by the hundreds in Mexico.

The thing is that pigs are known as nature’s “mixing bowl” for inter-species infections and for a very long time many swine flu viruses have contained human influenza components. So considering that these industrial farms house thousands of pigs in highly questionable conditions it isn’t surprising to some that something like this has happened.

We know that hog workers in Europe and North America are far more likely than others to be infected with potentially lethal pathogens such as MRSA (Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus), drug-resistant E. coli and Salmonella, and of course, swine influenza. Many scientists also believe that people who work inside CAFOs are more at risk of contracting and spreading these and other “zoonotic” diseases than those working in smaller-scale operations, with outdoor pens or pasture and far lower animal density.

But until now, hog workers with swine flu have rarely gone on to infect other people, save for close family members. And that is why this new strain of swine influenza virus is so vexing – and alarming. It seems to spread quite easily through casual human contact.

This new strain making headlines and killing people contains genetic components of human flu virus, avian flu virus and – for the first time ever – two types of swine flu virus: American and Eurasian. “Such a combination of components (genes) was not found so far, neither among humans nor among pigs (as far as we know),” CDC spokesman Tom Skinner said in an email.

Source: David Kirby – Huffington Post

All this fear of a pandemic wouldn’t be as encompassing as it is if it wasn’t for the one thing our society is well known for. We are considered a mobile society – only a plane flight away from anywhere in the world. It is because of this mobility that the pandemics we could experience today are far worse and much more far ranging than at the time of the Black Plague. A sick person; not knowing they are really sick, hops on a plane and within 12 to 24 hours they could be a country or half a world away and spread the illness to a whole new set of victims, and probably without realizing it.

It is one thing to understand how to fight something like this variation of the swine flu once it is out in the wild but equally so shouldn’t we also be looking at the causes of it?

If it is the case that things like these factory farms are part of the problem maybe we should be doing some serious re-evaluation of how we are producing the food that we eat on a daily basis.

More Swine Flu Resources

[hat tip Treehugger]