The
Skinny on Swine Flu
So we’ve all been scared aware of the
new H1N1 virus outbreak through the news and numerous WHO and
government press releases. It’s a lot of information to
take in and process. In the midst of it all the media gladly
began referring to the new H1N1 strain as the Swine Flu. I guess
that means it came from pigs… Just like the avian flu
came from birds? We’ll in a round about way this strain
did, but the H1N1 did not originate with pigs, nor with birds… Nor
are pigs and birds responsible for its deadly proliferation;
they are merely convenient hosts close to human populations.
The H1N1 virus has been with us for quite a while, and most of
us have immunities to ward off its numerous strains. All of us
should recall the Spanish Flu, another inappropriately named
but particularly virulent strain of the H1N1, and the Russian
Flu of the late 70’s is another version of the H1N1. In
fact the H1N1 flu is responsible for many of the flu strains
that are out there, mild and severe. But what causes these new
strains to pop up, and why do some become more deadly than others,
and why do most of the modern day outbreaks get traced back to
a farm, pig, poultry or other?
The answer I believe is found in the modern industrial farming
practices that we have created to supply ever cheaper food to
ever increasing populations. Cheaper, Bigger, Faster is the moniker
of “Big Food”. So how do we as a society do it cheaper,
bigger, faster? When it comes to pork and poultry the common
industrial practices have been to confine animals indoors and
feed them poor yet protein rich diets containing all sorts of
derived by-products. This keeps the monetary costs down to a
minimum, but it also creates a new set of problems that need
to be addressed. Speaking economically, the opportunity costs
to the environment, society, and the yet to be tallied monetary
costs of containing and treating outbreaks is far higher than
the savings gained through consuming cheap food… Let alone
the undetermined long term health consequences to humans. Symptoms
of this problematic industrial food system, where confinement
and poor diets for livestock are common practice, is stress in
animals, which inevitably leads to sickness. If one can be abstract
about this for a second, the symptoms not only appear in just
the animals. Contemporary industrialist food producers address
these symptoms in a benign attempt to remedy the problem; they
of course employ an industrialist solution; a series of artificial
solutions over a naturally occurring function.
The stress created by confinement of animals cannot be solved
in an industrial setting; that is the overriding problem. The
induced sicknesses can be addressed by food additives and antibiotics,
blended into a cocktail to create a sub-therapeutic wonder diet
that promotes rapid growth whilst keeping disease at bay. Thus
maximum output is maintained at the lowest possible cost, the
true genius of corporate functionalism have won. But every human
made solution these days seems to proliferate additional human
made problems; and antibiotics given to animals in the food system
does just that. Constant exposure to medications has created
an ideal setting for the rapid acceleration of mutations amongst
our closest enemies… Viruses. The H1N1 has essentially
been given ample opportunity visa vie the industrial food system
to learn how to more affectively infect humans, and this recent
outbreak is the result of just that.
What I hate to love in all of this is that we’ve demonized
the pig and the chicken, blamed them for our recent health woes.
Anthropologically speaking our strength as humans over diseases
has long been aided by our close association with domesticated
animals who afforded us exposure to diseases and then antibodies,
a self balancing cycle that has been occurring naturally since
the dawn of civilization. But the natural balance of this process
has been broken by the rapidity of the artificially accelerated
food production system in the 20th century. I suppose media is
type A, because we’ve pointed the finger in the wrong place… We
are responsible, not the animals. We know the disease cannot
be passed through consumption of their food. We just need to
make them healthier and then we should become healthier too,
and restore some of that natural balance. Cost wise, it seems
to make the most sense in the long term, especially if we are
being threatened now in the short term.
Further interesting reading on this and other topics
can be found in the following books:
Jared Diamond, Guns Germs and Steel,
Published by W.W. Norton
Bill Bryson, A Short History of Nearly Everything, Published
by Black Swan (UK) Broadway Books (US)
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The opinions expressed in the "A Word
From James" article are those of the James McIntosh
and do not necessarily represent
those of Scotch Mountain Meats Inc.
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