Swine flu: don't blame the pigs
Despite what green lobbyists and celebrity chefs like Jamie Oliver might have us believe, diseases like swine flu are less likely to develop in factory farms, not more so, argues Vivienne Parry this month’s Prospect. Of the 40 or so new diseases that have appeared around the world in the last three decades, almost all have begun in traditional “cottage” conditions. None, unless you count BSE, were caused by intensive production of animals. We need to stop panicking and start being realistic, Parry says: in factory farms, animals are routinely tested and treated for illnesses, and standards are routinely monitored; in traditional farms, by contrast, animals and humans come into contact much more regularly and diseases can go undetected for a dangerously long time. It’s these conditions that are much more likely to breed any future pandemics.
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Spot the logical flaw in Ms Parry’s piece? She says: “But any number of closely gathered animals, human or not, present an opportunity to a microbe.” She’s begged the question of whether the risk increases with the intensity – the crowding.
the real cause of flu outbreaks is toxic air from the likes of factory farming such as the latest swine flu outbreak in Mexico, right next to a factory pig farm that wouldn’t pass health and safety regulations in the USA. School outbreaks are right next to major raod junctions. In 1953 the UK gov his a toxic fuel problem under a flu outbreak. Of course, the covert agenda of flu outbreaks apart from hiding toxic air (eg from incinerators), is to sell vaccines and it is no coincidence that parry is on the JVCI, the rubber stamp committee that pushes vaccines on all and sundry.
You can see the game here http://www.whale.to/a/infectious_scares.html