| Friday, May 1, 2009 |
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Swine Flu Likely Started on CAFOs
By Monica @ 8:23 PM   
Well, it appears that my prediction/assertion that thousands of people could die from swine flu isn't coming true. I guess this time around, swine flu is turning out to be rather like SARS: big on scare, small on delivery. Not that I'm complaining!
The story that it spread from the hog CAFO near La Gloria, Mexico (that raises 1 million hogs yearly) might have something to it, however. The virus hasn't been found on the hog CAFO yet... according to authorities. However, that doesn't surprise me. This flu is a recombination of four viruses. I doubt the actual virus now circulating would ever be found in the pigs at La Gloria. What I think is more likely is that a virus from the pigs infected a human who was experiencing another viral infection at the same time, and a recombination event then took place, with that new virulent flu strain infecting and killing people. After all, the conditions the townspeople say they had been experiencing for weeks before the outbreak are quite disgusting, to say the least. 60% of townspeople reported respiratory distress and the whole town had been complaining of strong odors and flies. The town of La Gloria is eight miles downwind of this CAFO. That gives you an idea how big and filthy these operations are. If you have ever driven through the midwest and smell something utterly vile that you can't see, you know what it probably is. A CAFO.
Richard Nikoley has a good piece on how these flus quickly evolve toward lower virulence under lower host crowding conditions.
While I'm not a huge fan of the Centers for Disease Control (nor Scientific American for that matter), this article indicates that H1N1 got its start on hog CAFOs in the 1990s... in the United States.Labels: Swine Flu
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