In light of some significant misinformation being spread about the source of the current swine flu outbreak, I thought I’d put together some basic information on virus development for the everyday person.
The keeping of groups of animals in close proximity does not create a breeding ground for viruses that affect humans. Keeping groups of animals in close proximity does potentially create a breeding ground for mutations of a virus that affect the group species. This is simply a matter of evolution and opportunity, the virus that spreads is the virus that survives immune system defence to reproduce the most.
For a virus to make the leap to become infectious to humans, close proximity human-animal contact is required. The virus succeeds in crossing the animal-human barrier is the one that survives both the animal and human immune system defences to reproduce. This means a virus and its reproduced variants (mutations) must have ample opportunity to confront and survive the human immune system, not just the animal immune system. This is similar to the idea of a computer hacker, a hacker isn’t going to be very capable at defeating a system that s/he’s never faced let alone defeated.
So, counter-intuitive as it might sound, a large scale animal farm with automation implemented is actually presents a reduced risk of acting as a breeding ground for viruses that can cross the species barrier. Populations where humans and animals reside cheek to jowl, communities where most people keep a few pigs/goats/chickens are much better candidates as breeding grounds for human-animal transmissible viruses. This kind of environment is the suspected source of the last avian flu out break and many other outbreaks through history, and the reason historically why large-scale agriculture has NOT been the source of previous virus outbreaks.
Virus outbreaks (like the flu, the common cold and measles) are an entirely different condition than bacterial outbreaks (like salmonella & E.coli) Though we have an arsenal of antibiotics to fight against bacterial conditions both preventatively and post-infection, virus outbreaks are a typically a very different scenario. Virus outbreaks are typically treated preventatively by vaccines (to prepare the immune system for defence against a virus) or by targeted anti-viral treatments after the fact for the relatively small number of viruses that have a direct post-infection treatment. This is why virus outbreaks involve quarantine procedures while bacterial outbreaks typically do not.
It is simply too early to begin serious predictions as to the source of the current swine flu outbreak, though history predicts it will be not have stemmed from a large-scale agricultural site, HSUS press releases to the contrary. Fear-mongering and misinformation in this scenario is simply opportunistic and irresponsible.
Copyright 2009 by Erica Saunders http://AR-HR.com
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