The swine flu is yet another problem we can attribute to our modern meat industry. Mike Davis, in “The swine flue crisis lays bare the meat industry’s monstrous power”, explains that the H1N1 swine flu evolved in industrial pigsties of the American pork industry. While this article was written before the H1N1 swine flu had made the move from pigs to humans, Davis correctly anticipates the flu’s pandemic status. On the modern pig farm pigs, whose immune systems have been weakened as the result of selective breeding, live in extremely high population density pens in pools of their own filth. Pigs were not always raised in this high-density manner. “In 1965, for instance, there were 53m US hogs on more than 1m farms; today, 65m hogs are concentrated in 65,000 facilities” (Davis n.pag.). These farms, which can have tens of thousands of pigs under one roof, make for an ideal breeding ground for pathogens, such as the swine flu.
By intensively farming livestock in this way, we have basically created factories for pathogenic viruses. While H1N1 turned out to be only mildly dangerous, no one knows how deadly the next virus will be. And with the rate of mutation that is possible in these virus factories, there will surely be many more viruses making the transition from livestock to humans in the coming years.
The worst part about this situation is how little is being done to combat this problem. As of April 2009, Davis explains that although researchers were aware of that H1N1 could make the move to humans, our government ignored suggestions to create even an official system to monitor the virus. And the pork industry is not helping either. In fact, a Pew Research Center Commission, while investigating virus mutation in livestock, “reported systemic obstruction of their investigation by corporations, including blatant threats to withhold funding from cooperative researchers” (Davis n.pag.). This practice is completely unacceptable. When a livestock farming company uses practices that could create viruses possible of killing thousands, they should not be allowed to interfere with investigations. And if they are there should be a public uproar against them.
A few questions I think this reading raises:
-Do the economic costs of the health care required to combat viruses created on industrial livestock farms as well as the loss in productivity that results from people getting sick actually outweigh the economic savings that result from the improved efficiency of this type of farming?
-Who should be responsible for monitoring the pathogens being created on livestock farms? The Government? The WHO? The companies that are actually breeding the viruses?
Excellent question about the economic costs versus savings of the system--this is one of the ultimate questions that arises out of the course overall. It's also important to ask about who benefits the most from the savings and who ends up paying the costs. A common sentiment of critics (and lately this has been heard the most regarding the banking crisis) is that we "privatize profits and socialize costs."
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