Is Cheap Meat Endangering Our Lives?

Very interesting opinion piece about how factory farms facilitate the rapid spread of viruses into the food supply. Will our desire to mass-produce cheap meat end in a health disaster?

From the Independent...

How much harm will we do to ourselves in the name of cheap meat? We know that bird flu developed in the world's vast poultry farms. And we know that pumping animal feed full of antibiotics in factory farms has given us a new strain of MRSA. It's a simple, horrible process. The only way to keep animals alive in such conditions is to pump their feed full of antibiotics. But this has triggered an arms race with bacteria, which start evolving to beat the antibiotics – and emerge as in the end as pumped-up, super-charged bacteria invulnerable to our medical weapons. This system gave birth to a new kind of MRSA that now makes up 20 per cent of all human infections with the virus. Sir Liam Donaldson, the British government's Chief Medical Officer, warns: "Every inappropriate use in animals or agriculture [of antibiotics] is potentially a death warrant for a future patient."

Of course, agribusinesses is desperate to deny all this is happening: their bottom line depends on keeping this model on its shaky trotters. But once you factor in the cost of all these diseases and pandemics, cheap meat suddenly looks like an illusion.

Canadian Gives Swine Flu to Swine

A Canadian man has apparently infected some pigs after catching the flu on a trip to Mexico. From the article:

About 10 percent of the Alberta farm’s 2,200 pigs showed symptoms of the same H1N1 strain that has spread across the globe. They are recovering “on their own,” said Dr. Brian Evans, executive vice president of the Canadian Food Inspection Agency.

Egypt Begins Slaughtering Pigs Allegedly to Avoid Swine Flu

The Egyptian government has begun slaughtering all of the pigs in the country. From the NY Times:

Egypt has begun forcibly slaughtering the country’s pig herds as a precaution against swine flu, a move that the United Nations described as “a real mistake” and one that is prompting anger among the country’s pig farmers.

There are a estimated 300,000 that will be killed.

Update - Here is a fascinating blog post about the social and economic aspects of those that raise pigs in Egypt. Pig farmers are primarily Coptic Christians, and use them to dispose of garbage. Mubarak would like to turn this activity over to western companies.

Did Swine Flu Outbreak Start at an Industrial Hog Farm?

According to this AP article, some are blaming Smithfield Foods, which has 8 operations in La Gloria Mexico. The company denies it. You can read all about the horrible things Smithfield Foods has done in the US in this long Rolling Stone article. I can only imagine how things are run in Mexico.