H1N1 (Swine Flu): The Health and Welfare Implications for Humans and Animals

By Allan Kornberg, MD
Published 5/8/2009

While the recent emergence of the H1N1 virus (commonly known as swine flu) has not reached pandemic levels, it has generated a level of hysteria regarding public health concerns. As a physician, it is my professional responsibility to offer people the information they need to protect themselves and their families. While the H1N1 virus can be passed from animals to people and likely back again, it appears that swine flu is no more life-threatening than other annual seasonal influenza that sweeps through the human population every winter.

As of this writing, there have been more than 1,500 confirmed cases of H1N1 infection (most of them relatively mild) and at least 30 deaths, two confirmed in the United States. Recognizing that every life lost is an individual tragedy, placed in context, these numbers represent mere fractions of the deaths from many other infectious disease and other causes. For example: every year, about 500 people die from Campylobacter poisoning, acute salmonellosis kills about 1,000 victims, and methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) claims more lives in the U.S. – approximately 18,000 victims a year – than the AIDS virus.

The Root of the Problem

Even though swine flu now is not as deadly as many other illnesses, it is still a public health threat that must be taken seriously, and as such merits a concentrated investigation into its origins. Only by tracing the source of the infection can we hope to prevent future outbreaks (especially those that could prove far more lethal). The most current evidence seems to indicate that the recombinant pig-bird-human strain plaguing the world today germinated on a factory farm — an industrial pig farm in North Carolina (the nation’s top pork-producing state), to be exact.

Today’s H1N1 virus appears to be the mutated offspring of a hybrid “swine flu” bug that first emerged at a Smithfield facility in 1998 and combined gene sequences from pigs, birds and humans.  Research showing that 80 percent of its gene sequences are identical to the virus that ravaged the U.S. and Canadian pig population in the late 1990s provide compelling support for this theory. Speculation continues to swirl around a possible link to a Smithfield subsidiary’s pig mega-farm in Mexico located near the first reported case of H1N1 and investigations are ongoing.

At one time most hog farms were small family-owned operations with a few dozen animals, and the evolution of a virus would not advance very far because there just weren’t enough hosts to foster its growth. But the pork industry has undergone drastic changes in the past several years as pig farms vertically integrated. The number of hogs per farm skyrocketed, so that today the average number of pigs per facility is more than 5,000.

The sheer number of animals being raised indoors in close quarters is serious cause for concern from both an animal welfare and public health standpoint. Add to that the immunosuppression that results from stressful overcrowding, unnatural confinement in gestation crates (2-foot-wide metal enclosures that prevent breeding sows from turning around or lying down comfortably) for months at a time, and the filth and feces that accumulates under the animals’ feet, and you have a virtually perfect laboratory for the development of new disease strains.   

Zoonotic diseases including campylobacter poisoning, acute salmonellosis, E. coli, variant Creutzfeldt- Jakob Disease (the human form of mad cow disease), MRSA and H5N1 (avian influenza) have all been linked directly, or indirectly, to intensive animal agriculture. Swine flu now joins these ranks, and as long as factory farms continue to propagate, this won’t be the last infectious disease to emerge.

Propagation: Crossing Borders

Factory farms place the communities they are located in at risk by failing to take precautionary measures to prevent their workers from being infected by diseases that incubate in these facilities and become transmissible to humans. That is, when these workers contract a disease and become contagious, they pass their germs on to their neighbors, and those neighbors contaminate others, and through this passage, new variations of the disease can develop.  

The first case of a human likely passing the H1N1 virus to an animal has occurred on aCanadian pig farm, and was discovered because farmers and veterinarians in the province of Alberta are required to inform government officials when any of the pigs they raise or treat are stricken with swine flu. In contrast, the U.S. Department of Agriculture has not implemented any such tracking program, so it is no surprise that no pigs infected with the H1N1 virus have yet been identified in the United States. This “don’t look, don’t find” policy almost guarantees that pigs infected with H1N1 will remain undetected, and indicates that the agency charged with keeping Americans safe is more committed to protecting the pork industry’s profits than the public interest. Farm Sanctuary has seen similar “don’t look, don’t find” policies in handling mad cow disease in the United States.

A Pig’s Perception

Just as swine flu has caused an inordinate amount of alarm compared to its probable level of danger, H1N1 has sullied public perception of the pig, branding this animal with an undeserved reputation for filth and sickness. As a physician with a sworn duty to promote human health and as an animal advocate who cares about the welfare of other species, I am inclined to defend the noble hog from slander, especially because these animals are naturally clean creatures. For example, when given the opportunity, pigs will defecate in a separate area from where they sleep. This basic natural behavior is denied pigs on factory farms, where they are kept in such close confinement.

It is also worth noting that it is the very biological similarities between people and pigs that have facilitated the rise of swine flu in factory farms where humans are in close contact with pigs. Genetically, these highly intelligent and sensitive creatures are so much like us that it begs further examination in how they are treated.

One of my greatest fears about the H1N1 virus is that governments will overreact to this outbreak and order the mass culling of pigs. We have already seen this in Egypt where the country ordered the killing of 300,000 pigs after initial announcements of the spread of swine flu. If this disease were to grow to pandemic proportions, there is a chance that we could see these excessive measures emerge once again.

I hope that anyone with pigs will take the necessary precautions to protect the animals under their care and curb any unnecessary reactions to the spread of this disease, just as we need to wash our hands often and take the precautions needed to curb the spread of swine flu amongst humans. 

At Farm Sanctuary, the shelter staff has restricted access to the pig barns indefinitely during tour season for the protection of the pigs, as well as the peace of mind of visitors. The pigs who reside at Farm Sanctuary are healthy, but there is a chance that they could contract H1N1 from humans. As many mainstream media reports have stated, the pigs are not to blame for this. In fact, it is the industry that pushes for the ever more expansion of factory farms at all costs that needs to be held accountable for the breeding ground of human as well as animal disease.

Allan E. Kornberg MD is Senior Vice President for the National Initiative for Children’s Health Quality (NICHQ) and a pediatrician with 25 years of clinical and executive experience. Dr. Kornberg’s most recent healthcare post prior to joining NICHQ was as CEO of Network Health, a Medicaid health plan serving the poor in Massachusetts. He has also been Medical Director with Harvard Pilgrim Health Care, the Executive Director and Medical Director for the physician-hospital organization at Scottish Rite Children's Medical Center, and Chief of Emergency Medicine at Buffalo Children's Hospital. Dr.Kornberg is a member of Farm Sanctuary’s Board of Directors, and served as the U.S. Executive Director for the World Society for the Protection of Animals, a global animal welfare charity based in London, UK.

Dr. Kornberg is available to the media for interviews. Please contact media@farmsanctuary.org to schedule.