The industry has been pushing the American media and our politicians to refer to the virus instead as “novel H1N1,” which is indeed a scientific way to reference the flu. But “swine flu” has stuck because this is a virus that has passed between humans and pigs. It is uncertain still how the virus evolved and from where exactly, but as we are producing a glut of pork in the US it is not far off to consider that keeping thousands of pigs in close confinement in order to create cheap meat could be exacerbating the potential for disease.

When the news broke about the flu, many in the media focused on the personal aspect of avoiding getting ill, followed the illness as it took victims, or otherwise detailed the ways flus have played out historically. A few bloggers on sustainable food issues, like Tom Philpott at Grist, questioned the proximity of the virus outbreak in Perote, Mexico, 5 miles from a concentrated animal feeding operation (CAFO) producing meat for pork giant Smithfield in the state of Vera Cruz.

But now, as the World Health Organization expects a second wave of the flu to hit the northern hemisphere in the fall, it is worth considering some of the looming questions on how CAFOs could be contributing to the occurrence of disease.

Environmental Health Perspectives’ (EHP) cover story this month by Charles W. Schmidt focuses on the issue in detail, reigniting questions surrounding our country’s current standard animal industry practices:

…one potential source of the original outbreak—swine farming in concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs)—has received comparatively little attention by public health officials. CAFOs house animals by the thousands in crowded indoor facilities. But the same economy-of-scale efficiencies that allow CAFOs to produce affordable meat for so many consumers also facilitate the mutation of viral pathogens into novel strains that can be passed on to farm workers and veterinarians, according to Gregory Gray, director of the Center for Emerging Infectious Diseases at the University of Iowa College of Public Health.

“When respiratory viruses get into these confinement facilities, they have continual opportunity to replicate, mutate, reassort, and recombine into novel strains,” Gray explains. “The best surrogates we can find in the human population are prisons, military bases, ships, or schools. But respiratory viruses can run quickly through these [human] populations and then burn out, whereas in CAFOs—which often have continual introductions of [unexposed] animals—there’s a much greater potential for the viruses to spread and become endemic.”

So how would we in the US know if there were sick pigs at a 2,000 sow facility? The EHP article also follows up on the $1.5 million dollar USDA surveillance program assigned to look for novel flu strains in pigs, which is relying on voluntary samples. From that article:

[distinguished professor at Kansas State University College of Veterinary Medicine, Jürgen A. Richt] asserts that without more industry cooperation, the USDA’s surveillance program is “dead in the water.” In other words, he explains, producers won’t submit their animals for analysis without a guarantee of indemnification, meaning economic protection to recover losses should the virus be discovered.

In addition, Schmidt writes,

CAFOs fall through regulatory cracks when it comes to sampling for novel viruses that could make people sick. [Associate director for epidemiologic science in the Influenza Division of the CDC Carolyn Bridges] explains that producers have little incentive to test for swine influenzas, in part because they aren’t included on a list of 150 “reportable illnesses” that, when detected, must be documented with the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE).

CAFO operators like to claim that their facilities are biosecure — sealed off from the world and therefore unaffected by it — where workers shower before and after entering, wear protective coverings over hair and clothing, and visitors are highly restricted. But this biosecurity could also be seen as an incubator for the creation of super viruses. As the article points out, animals in these facilities are given eight times the antibiotics that the average American human consumes, therefore increasing the risk for confined livestock with antibiotic resistant immune systems to pass novel viruses unchecked among herds.

So far, four swine herds have been identified as having H1N1, one in Alberta, Canada (which was destroyed without compensation to the owner when discovered) one in Québec, Canada, and two herds in Argentina’s Buenos Aires Province. But American pork farmers are terrified of the possibility of herd loss and trade sanctions on the already hurting industry, and as such, actively have sought to keep inspectors out.

The CAFO workers — according to EHP, there are an estimated 54,000 working in swine and poultry CAFOs in the US — could be a crucial link in the spread of disease. If a worker acquires swine flu, it would probably go undetected, as the systems in place currently do not vaccinate or observe them for the flu. It is not a stretch to suggest, then, that new super viruses emerging in these environments could be passed to unaware, impoverished and even sometimes illegal CAFO employees, unlikely to complain to the Occupational Safety Hazards Agency (OSHA) for fear of losing their job. The disease then has the potential to spread to their communities and beyond. Again, from EHP:

OSHA typically exempts facilities with fewer than 11 employees from routine inspection unless otherwise requested by employees or other agencies. Yet, like many other modern production facilities, CAFOs are largely automated, so a typical factory farm housing 2,000 sows requires a crew of just 7 people, according to Don Butler, director of government relations and public affairs for Murphy-Brown, the livestock production subsidiary of Smithfield Foods. And [Steven Wing, an associate professor of epidemiology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill] adds that CAFOs in some regions are often staffed by black and Hispanic workers who might fear racial harassment for reporting safety infractions to OSHA, as well as low-income workers of all races who worry about keeping their jobs in the industry and access to health care, housing, and other services provided by their employers.

When asked how OSHA regulates zoonotic disease risk at CAFOs, a spokesman at the agency said its purview applies exclusively to bloodborne pathogens via the Bloodborne Pathogens Standard (29 CFR 1910.1030), which excludes respiratory infections such as swine flu.

So where does this leave the public? Information has been lacking on these and other issues relating to the consequences of our industrial food system for far to long. It is possible that the USDA and the rest of the Obama administration has dropped the ball on investigating this issue — and that there will come a harsher version of the flu with no understood origin this fall. But the public deserves the facts about the consequences of industrial agriculture. And those facts, in the light of day, could force this administration to stop dragging its feet when it comes to building a sustainable food system.

I have personally written three pieces on the flu (here, here, and here).  My newspaper article in particular received a tsunami of feedback.  While I might normally receive a handful or two of emails after each of my EcoChef columns, in this case I received nearly four times that amount.  What was particularly interesting about the feedback was that is was so clearly bifurcated:  praising me for exploring these issues and asking for more clarification or lambasting me for my ignorance and stupidity for writing such nonsense.

In my defense, I want to clearly point out that I have never claimed there was a direct link between the H1N1 and CAFOs, from the Mexican Smithfield plant or any other.

That said, the ecologist in me is fairly certain that CAFOs have a role to play.  Why?  Because in host / parasite interactions, the parasite (influenza variant) needs high densities of its host (in this case pigs, humans, and birds) to thrive.  At low host densities, the parasite can’t spread and reproduce, and it slowly diminishes (and/or becomes less harmful to the host).  It is in high density situations that parasites can really do some damage.

A common, uncontroversial example:  Human hospitals. They have recently come under fire for being breeding grounds for extremely virulent and harmful pathogen strains.  Hospitals have high densities of sick and often immobile patients, who are regularly given antibiotics and other microbials to fend off these infections.  Over time, unfortunately, these only make the pathogens stronger.

In the animal world, the closest thing to a human hospital that I can think of is a CAFO – a confined animal feeding operation.  They, like hospitals, have high densities of often relatively immobile animals.  These animals are often so “sensitive to disease” (read: sick) that they need regular administrations of antibiotics to keep them alive.  Over time, unfortunately, these antibiotics only make the pathogens stronger.

Compare this with the small fraction of free range pigs that are given antibiotics. Dan Bagley of Clark Summit Farm says he’s given one pig antibiotics in five years – that’s 0.4% of his pigs / year vs. frequent antibiotics administration to 100% of the pigs in a CAFO herd.

So far, everything I’ve written is scientifically true but also abstract.  So, let’s get to the meat of the matter:  what do we know now about the origin of this last worldwide virus outbreak?

The unfortunate fact is that we are probably never going to know the whole truth.  But we do, fortunately, know this:  the H1N1 swine flu did come from pigs, although they were probably not the most recent host.

Jason Gale reported on Bloomberg that the first genetic analysis of the virus has recently been completed by Richard Webby and his team at the World Health Organization Collaborating Center in Memphis,

According to Gale’s article:

By analyzing the sequence of hundreds of amino acids coded by each of the flu virus’s eight genes, Webby found the virus’s closest relatives are an H1N1 flu strain that has circulated widely among North American pigs since the late 1990s, and one from Europe that’s been in swine for at least three decades.

The article does point out that there are also recent avian links (perhaps from duck ponds being used to wash pig houses?).

The bottom line is this:  there is a direct pig link in the genetics.  This is science, not speculation.

That doesn’t point a smoking gun at CAFOs specifically.  They may or may not have been involved.  But, if you look at the numbers of pigs in CAFOs (huge) vs. free range animals (a very small percent), the probabilities point in the factory farm direction.

Which brings me back to an email response I received to my Oakland Tribune article.  Jeremy Russell of the National Meat Association, wrote:

Dear Mr. French,

Your column today ‘Know where your pork comes from’ shows that you
have been keeping up with neither the news nor the science about H1N1
and pig production.

Public health officials in Mexico have found no evidence of a link
between the outbreak and the swine herds in Veracruz. Furthermore,
part of the purpose of a confined feeding operation is to protect
swine herds from viral infections which come from the outside and
contain them inside if and when they do occur. I would expect an
ecologist to understand this.

There is a reason the operation in Mexico is not unique — it is built
on a model that is effective, efficient and biosecure. And with sound
management practices waste discharge can be avoided entirely. In
fact, EPA last year set a zero-discharge standard for CAFOs in the
United States. (EPA has all the info posted at

http://cfpub.epa.gov/npdes/afo/cafofinalrule.cfm)

It’s your responsibility as a columnist to get the facts right, and
your linkage between H1N1 and modern pork production practices is
ignorant at best.

Sincerely,
Jeremy Russell
Director of Communications and Government Relations
National Meat Association

I think it is clear that the science proves Russell to be wrong on all accounts.  To respond to his last point first – we now do have a clear link between H1N1 and modern pork production.  Done.

But more importantly, there is a significant body of evidence that pig CAFOs are not even remotely biosecure.  For example, Rachel Ehrenberg reported in Science News:

The manure generated by thousands of cows or pigs doesn’t just stink — it may seriously affect human health.

New research examining two decades’ worth of livestock production data finds a positive relationship between increased production at industrial farms and infant death rates in the counties where the farms reside.  The study reported in the February American Journal of Agricultural Economics implicates air pollution and suggests that Clean Air Act regulations need to be revamped to address livestock production of noxious gases.

Infant death from noxious gases?  This is just part of the CAFO problem.  These reports from the pig-loving University of Iowa discuss other serious health, economic, and environmental issues – including the effects of manure spills, fish kills, impaired watersheds, and decreased recreational opportunities: Study 1, Study 2.

There are numerous points in each of these reports that directly contradict Russell’s claim of biological containment. Still not convinced? What about an extensive 2½-year examination conducted by the Pew Commission on Industrial Farm Animal Production (PCIFAP), which says:

Air quality degradation is also a problem in and around IFAP facilities because of the localized release of significant quantities of toxic gases, odorous substances, and particulates and bioaerosols that contain a variety of microorganisms including human pathogens. Some of the most objectionable compounds are the organic acids, which include acetic acid, butyric acids, valeric acids, caproic acids, and propanoic acid; sulfur containing compounds such as hydrogen sulfide and dimethyl sulfide; and nitrogen-containing compounds including ammonia, methyl amines, methyl pyrazines, skatoles and indoles.

The H1H1 swine flu outbreak has been devastating, even fatal, for many.  One “silver lining” of this worldwide problem is the attention it has placed on modern pig farming practices.

Ultimately, it comes down to this: why do we have these CAFOs in the first place? The pork industry tells us it’s to protect the pigs. This is an obvious red herring, as pigs have coexisted with humans for thousands of years. And ironically, it is this partial separation and concentration of pigs and humans that makes strains of bacteria like the methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA for short) so virulent (a separate and possibly more serious phenomenon).

Successful free-range pig farmers are making a strong comeback, spurred along no doubt by the success of Willis Farm’s collaboration with Niman Ranch. CAFOs are a failed experiment in farming that survives on subsidies and legal protectionism. If CAFO farmers were required to pay the full social, economic, and environmental cost for their practices, we would surely see a decline in this destructive practice.

–

A final personal note: I am not “against” the meat industry. I spent part of my childhood on a farm where I learned to raise, slaughter, and butcher the animals that we grew. I am not squeamish about meat production, and I personally eat meat and cook it professionally. However, we need to return to a method of raising animals that is productive for the environment, not harmful to it.

I have long worried about the impacts of the massive confined animal feeding operations, the so called CAFOs. They worry me because of the stress they create in animals, the pollution problems that effect air and water quality around each CAFO, and the need for continuous sub-therapeutic feeding of antibiotics to suppress disease and stimulate growth. The antibiotic issue is of particular concern to me due to the virulent infections that seem to be emerging like MRSA,Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, which are antibiotic resistant.

Whether or not these stories out of Mexico about the Smithfield hog CAFO prove to be true, if this pandemic spurs a swine holocaust my sense of shame over our mistreatment of a long allied species will be deep. I suspect I will not be the only human feeling guilty. It happens over and over. Chickens, sheep, cattle and hogs suffer slaughter when we feel threatened. We kill in mass numbers to stem the source of infection or so we think. The mass killings seem more like an ancient ritual, perhaps more psychologically therapeutic, than preventative in these modern times.

The farmers and ranchers suffer too. Their long-tended herds are lost and they must start again. This is costly in time, money and emotion. A quote from an Egyptian Agriculture Ministry official in a news story today was especially troubling. He said the farmers would not be hurt because they can sell their meat. Obviously, this official has little understanding of supply and demand pricing in a commodity system. The price will crash when 350,000 hog bellies hit the market in one week.

The root of the problem is that we are treating biological systems as if they are factories. Yes hogs like herds, but not in confined places. The herds are sometimes very large. On more than one occasion, I have seen dozens of feral pigs running together in the coastal mountains of California. Hogs have been domesticated for 7,000-10,000 years. So we have lived with them in villages for millennia. But only in recent decades, have we turned hogs into cogs in our meat manufacturing sites that house tens of thousands of animals in one place. The industrial hog factories forgo the chance to provide every hog with heaven on earth before the hogs provide nutrition to people. Hog heaven before slaughter seems like a better deal for all involved in light of recent developments.

There are still some farmers willing to pasture their pigs. It costs more, but the pigs, farms, and communities are happier and healthier. The Niman Ranch farmers in Iowa and Poly Face Farm in Virginia are two of the best known, but there are many others, particularly family farmers serving regional buyers. Perhaps if the world got back to pasturing pork and hog heaven, the stress, pollution and pandemics – today’s clear and present dangers – would no longer be so closely associated with swine. That is my hope anyway for the “other white meat” so many of us love to eat. ]]> http://civileats.com/2009/04/30/hog-heaven-or-hogocaust/feed/ 6 http://civileats.com/2009/04/28/the-obamas-in-the-first-100-days-b-on-agriculture-policy/ http://civileats.com/2009/04/28/the-obamas-in-the-first-100-days-b-on-agriculture-policy/#comments Wed, 29 Apr 2009 04:17:12 +0000 pcrossfield http://civileats.com/?p=3408 When the news broke that First Lady Michelle Obama was putting in a vegetable garden on the White House lawn in March, I couldn’t help but wonder if it would be the most powerful “soft” policy position on food this presidency could take in the first 100 days. In just planting a garden, she not only might have begun to change our view of vegetables , while inspiring Americans to grow some of their own food and save a little money in this time of economic crisis, but she also might have gracefully encouraged us to diversify our diets — the basis for good health, and by extension, a healthier agriculture system. For this alone, she gets an “A” on her contribution to the administration’s agriculture policy in the first 100 days.

President Obama, on the other hand, entered his role with a stack of urgent crises on his desk. Food advocates couldn’t help but have lowered expectations of how he would address the decline of farming and of rural populations; lobbyists working in the USDA, FDA and EPA; the quality of school lunch; the 36 million Americans suffering from hunger; energy independence beyond the empty promise of ethanol, and more. The real food lobby has gotten used to these vital issues taking a back seat, but that didn’t mean they were going to stop asking our young, hip and multitasking president to change all that.

And as if that list of problems facing the food system weren’t enough, food safety became the main domestic issue (aside from the economy) thrust into daylight of this administration, beginning with the massive peanut butter recall back in January, then followed by Nicholas Kristof’s illumination of increased incidences of the virulent, untreatable bacteria MRSA (Methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus) occurring near factory hog farms in the Midwest, and now culminating in the swine flu, which might have had its origins in a Confined Animal Feeding Operation (CAFO) cesspool at a million-head-per-year Smithfield hog farm in Perote, Mexico.

It seems, however, that President Obama and Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack still view agriculture as separate from the problems we face in health care, environmental policy and energy policy. He has yet to show that he understands that in order to address food safety with lasting effect, his cabinet must address the underlying issues facing our food system first, including its reliance on oil and the unhealthy food it produces. I hate to do it, but I have to give the President a “C-” on his agriculture policy thus far, bringing the Obamas to a combined grade of “B-”.

“It’s time that our leaders engage in whole systems solutions for the problems facing not only our economy, but also agriculture,” said David Murphy of Food Democracy Now!, a sustainable food advocacy group, when asked about the matter. “Failure to do so will only lead to an increase in the number and severity of future food safety outbreaks.”

Back in March, it seemed as if Obama was prepared to change this status quo on food safety, with the announcement of a Food Safety Working Group (FSWG), following the recall of over 1500 products containing contaminated peanut butter, confirming what had been known for some time by those who study the food system: contamination in an industrial agriculture model can spread fast and far. Obama insisted with the introduction of the FSWG that he was going to take food safety seriously. But then the committee seemed to drop like a stone into the annals of policy making.

Why haven’t we continued to hear more from the FSWG? Perhaps because Former Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius was held up until yesterday in the Senate, when she was finally confirmed as Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services. Now that she is on board, there is again hope that food safety issues will be front and center (if only because of the fear surrounding the swine flu) and will hopefully get beyond the simplistic message that we can eat pork without worry.

“One place President Obama could start is to call for more regulation of Confined Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs) to make sure that they operate in accordance with the clean air and clean water acts,” Murphy said. “Another step would be to phase out the use of antibiotics in livestock that are important in the medical treatment of humans. The current swine flu pandemic should be a significant teachable moment for consumers, legislators and livestock producers. There are some things we can no longer afford to ignore. It’s time to put people over profits.”

Food safety requires manageable scale. And it requires honest, unbiased risk assessment. If a hog confinement operation was indeed the origin of the swine flu, we should not be afraid to consider the possibility that the way we are raising animals for meat in this country is dangerous and will never be safe.

Let that honest assessment begin today at 9:30 am, when 20 victims of foodborne illness, including surviving family members, will be in Washington, DC to share their stories and to call on Congress to pass food safety legislation. 76 million people get sick every year from food contamination, and 5,000 lose their lives. A band-aid will never solve this problem.

There is still hope that President Obama will recognize the power of local food economies of scale. With unemployment at 8.5% as of March and growing, its time for him and his cabinet to think seriously about the original green job: farming. He can begin by initiating a “farmer corps” program to incubate new farmers, similar to one recently implemented in Japan. Furthermore, instead of just talking about ending subsidies for industrial commodity farms, he should take action, minimizing payments and thereby incentivizing diversity in growing.

As the veil is lifted and consumers continue to learn through films like Food, Inc., Fresh and Meat the Truth about the impact of the food choices we make, the voices pushing Obama to deal with our unwieldy and outdated food system will only grow louder.  I hope that following this, the President and his cabinet will address food as the serious and vital issue that it is, and the President will deserve an “A” for his agriculture policy in the next 100 days.

Science is more essential for our prosperity, our security, our health, our environment, and our quality of life than it has ever been before.

And if there was ever a day that reminded us of our shared stake in science and research, it’s today.  We are closely monitoring the emerging cases of swine flu in the United States. And this is obviously a cause for concern and requires a heightened state of alert.  But it’s not a cause for alarm.

So, the question is: what does science say about the causes of the current swine flu epidemic?

The first place to start is the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), which has a dedicated section on Swine Flu. As of April 27, 1:00 PM ET, there were 40 confirmed cases of swine flu infection in the United States – 7 from California, 28 from New York, 1 from Ohio, and 2 from both Texas and Kansas. This is double the number from yesterday, and more than four times the number of confirmed cases on April 25^th.

Over at the World Health Organization, Director-General Dr. Margaret Chan just raised the level of influenza pandemic alert to Phase 4 – which means that there are “verified human-to-human transmission of an animal or human-animal influenza reassortant virus able to cause ‘community-level outbreaks.’”

The largest unanswered question remains: where are these infections coming from?

During a CDC press briefing on April 26^th, Daniel Steinberger from CBS News asked: “ Can you confirm reports that there may be officials in Mexico who are investigating industrial-scale hog facilities as a potential source, or CAFOs?”

The CDC’s Dr. Anne Shuchat responded:

No, I can’t confirm that. I can say that the U.S. Department of Agriculture is working with other parts of the government on animal sources. You know, were doing that as a routine part of this kind of investigation. We’re at the point where we don’t have information about illness in pigs related to this virus, but that would be a normal thing to be looking into.

This despite the Q&A on the CDC website that says “Swine Influenza (swine flu) is a respiratory disease of pigs caused by type A influenza viruses that causes regular outbreaks in pigs. People do not normally get swine flu, but human infections can and do happen.”

But here’s where things get really strange: this strain of the swine flu virus is not just from pigs.

In an interview with Dr. Mike Hansen, a Senior Staff Scientist with Consumers Union, he said “What’s unique here, is that this is not a straight-up swine flu. This has genetic material from swine, avian, and human influenzas…they haven’t found anything like this in any pigs yet.”

Dr. Hansen pointed out that this might indicate a link to a small mixed farming situation, where pigs and perhaps ducks are kept, rather than a larger industrial farm. “So that means that in a certain ironic sense, the big CAFOs might not be the problem,” Hansen continued. “Until we know more….if we point in that direction too much initially, and that’s not where the flu is coming from, then they can use that to sort of discredit the critics of CAFOs. CAFOs are bad for a number of environmental and human health reasons, and that’s why so many groups are fighting them. What’s good is more ecologically logical agriculture, and CAFOs surely aren’t that. But until we know more we need to be testing both big and small pig farmers.”

Other groups are also making the case that we need to study the problem more aggressively. The nonprofit Food & Water Watch sent a letter today to congressional leaders in the House and Senate, asking them to look into the source of the virus, the pathway for transmission between hogs and humans, and conditions inside hog confinement operations that could foster the growth and mutation of the influenza virus into more virulent strains.

The letter continues:

“Swine flu is not the only impact on public health impact from pork production that is worthy of examination by your committees. Another crucial topic is the discovery of Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) in U.S. hog facilities, a finding that follows on the discovery of these antibiotic-resistant bacteria on hog farms in Canada and the Netherlands. A growing body of research is establishing the link between the trend of antibiotic-resistant bacteria and the use of antibiotics in livestock production. In fact, recent studies of E. coli bacteria on operations using non-therapeutic antibiotics find that anywhere from 30 to 80 percent of bacterial samples are resistant to one or more antibiotics. These bacteria can be transmitted from livestock to humans through direct contact between animals and workers or farm families; through human contact with animal waste, which can leach into water sources or be carried by flies; or on the meat that consumers purchase in retail stores.”

Finally, in response to the connections first reported on Grist and the Biosurveillance blog, Smithfield Farm reported in a press release that “Based on available recent information, Smithfield has no reason to believe that the virus is in any way connected to its operations in Mexico.”

According to Meatingplace.com (an on-line community for red meat and poultry processors in North America), Smithfield is “cooperating with Mexican officials to assist the investigation of the possible sources of the outbreak of the disease and will submit samples from its swine herds to the University of Mexico for testing.”

A report in the Guardian links La Gloria, a small town in eastern Mexico 12 miles from the Smithfield plant, as the possible epicenter of the recent outbreak. The article cites that “60% of the town’s population…has been affected.”

Dr. Hansen weighs in: “If 60% of the population of a town near a huge swine facility got sick with this flu and those are among the first cases seen (e.g. close to ground zero), then that really does point a strong finger that something in that area could be the problem.  At the very least, there should be a very specific investigation of the Smithfield facility that involves significant testing of those pigs for swine flu.”

We’ll just have to wait to see how all of this pans out over the coming days. But with the stakes as high as they are, we need to make sure we are following the science of the problem and not let our personal opinions about these controversial topics cloud the facts of this outbreak.

Smithfield is the world’s largest pork producer.  At the Perote, Mexico facility operated by Smithfield subsidary Granjas Carroll, 950,000 pigs were raised and sold for meat in 2008. According to the disease-tracking site Biosurveillance:

Residents [of La Gloria, Perote Municipality, Veracruz State, Mexico] believed the outbreak had been caused by contamination from pig breeding farms located in the area. They believed that the farms, operated by Granjas Carroll, polluted the atmosphere and local water bodies, which in turn led to the disease outbreak. According to residents, the company denied responsibility for the outbreak and attributed the cases to ‘flu.’ However, a municipal health official stated that preliminary investigations indicated that the disease vector was a type of fly that reproduces in pig waste and that the outbreak was linked to the pig farms. It was unclear whether health officials had identified a suspected pathogen responsible for this outbreak.

As of this moment, cases of the animal strain of the H1N1 virus have been reported in New York, California and Kansas. The virus has killed up to 68 people and there are currently 1,004 suspected cases in Mexico and 8 in the United States. However, there have been few mentions of the connection between swine flu and the Smithfield CAFO in the US news. There is an informative piece up on Huffington Post which gives a perspective on virulent flus and the role CAFOs might have played by David Kirby.  In it, Ellen Silbergeld, professor of environmental health sciences at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, and a leading researcher of pathogen evolution in CAFOs makes the connection between industrial pork operations and potential disease clear.  Here is a selection from Kirby’s piece quoting Silbergeld:

“CAFOs are not biosecure,” she told me. “They have high rates of ventilation and enormous number of animals that would die of heat stress unless the building was ventilated. We and others have measured bacteria and viruses in the environment around poultry and swine houses. They are carried by flies, too. These places are not bio-secure going in – or going out.”

“These mixing bowls of intensive operations of chickens and pigs are contributing to speeding up viral evolution,” Dr. Silbergeld added. “I think CAFOs are contributing.”

While it is not yet time to panic on the swine flu front, it is important to stay informed.

Hat tip to Tom Phillpott and Paula Hay for details on this developing story.

This reporter is about to get on a plane, but I will keep you updated as I know more.