SARS:
Another Deadly Virus From the Meat Industry
by Michael Greger, M.D.
Animal agriculture
is not just a public health hazard for those that consume meat.
In fact, the single worst epidemic in recorded world history,
the 1918 influenza pandemic, has been blamed on the livestock
industry.[1] In that case, the unnatural
density and proximity of ducks and pigs raised for slaughter probably
led to the deaths of 20
to 40 million people across the world.[2]
Since then, the raising of pigs and poultry has resulted in millions
more human deaths from the 1957-58 Asian flu, the 1968-69 Hongkong
flu and the 1977 swine flu.[3] All of these
influenza strains seem to have arisen in the same region of southern
China where intensive systems of animal agriculture have become
a breeding ground for new killer viruses.[4]
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.
Return
to Information Library
|