Mexico hasn’t had a new swine flu case in a week and is lowering its threat level. Oh boy, now we can forget about that cocktail of pig, bird and human genes and concentrate on Ms. California’s homophobic boobs. But, few of us lived through the 1918 pandemic where millions died in the second wave of the Spanish Flu virus. See, it comes on during the first flu season and then subsides, only to come back again the next year with full throttled vengeance. The history and issues, after the jump.
Flu’s genetic material is made up of just eight strands and only about 30 genes. Flu RNA is sub microscopic and much smaller than DNA or bacteria. It’s kind of like a half-step between a mere chemical compound (not alive?) and the 25000 genes in each of our cells (alive?). These flu genes invade the much larger cell and contain the instructions for making the virus’s simple components, including the capsule and surface markers, which our cells copy. The surface markers are what give the influenza its labels. The subtype for swine flu is H1N1. H stands for Haemagglutinin and N for Neuraminidase. This is the same subtype as the deadly Spanish flu of 1918.
Things worked more slowly in the early 20th century. It took about 15 years for researchers to understand what exactly had killed millions in 1918. The influenza A virus was first isolated in 1931 from swine and in 1933 from humans. The close relationship between the 1918 flu and today’s virus was reconfirmed recently by the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology (AFIP) in Maryland, from two sources: first, from stored specimens of 70 human autopsy cases of the 1918 flu pandemic and secondly, from a preserved bird from the 1915-1918 era stored at the Smithsonian. However, because the Smithsonian’s 1918 bird virus was genetically different than the 1930's human and pig viruses, the AFIP believes that the 1918 virus was probably circulated among swine and/or humans for some period, undergoing genetic "drift", before leading to widespread illness in 1918's second seasonal disease wave. 1918 virus is likely to have reassorted, or mixed genetically for years in an
intermediate host.
The same "mixing" for a decade is likely to have occurred with the current swine flu. Pigs have receptors for both human and bird flu viruses, which makes them ideal "mixing vessels" for new viral combinations. Bird flu is easily transmitted to pigs via their droppings. If a pig catches two kinds of flu at once, a new hybrid can emerge with genes from both viruses.
According to Dr. Raul Rabadan, a professor of computational biology at Columbia University, six of the eight genetic segments are purely swine flu and the other two segments are bird and human, but have lived in swine for the past decade. Four of the six swine segments are North American, while one each of the remaining swine gene segments are from Asia and Europe. This was confirmed by the CDC.
CDC's chief Virologist confirmed that the current swine flu strain evolved from a strain that cropped up in U.S. hog farms in 1998. Prior to that, only one subtype was known.
Author Bernice Wuethrich explained: "In the past decade, big swine producers have gotten bigger, and many small producers have gone out of business. The percentage of farms with 5,000 or more animals surged from 18 percent in 1993 to 53 percent in 2002." With larger numbers of pigs being farmed together, there is also a greater chance of viruses spreading and rogue strains developing.
Bernice Wuethrich, "Chasing the Fickle Swine Flu", Science, Vol. 299, 2003
"In 1965, for instance, there were 53 million American hogs on more than 1 million farms; today, 65 million hogs are concentrated in 65,000 facilities -- half with more than 5000 animals." Smithfield Foods, the largest and most profitable pork processor in the world, killed 27 million hogs in 2005.
Bigger means harder to regulate. Besides the then largest EPA fine of nearly $12 Million for it’s US violations, Smithfield does not enjoy a good record of corporate citizenship in it’s international operations. A couple of years ago in Romania, Smithfield refused to let local authorities enter its pig farms after residents complained of the stench coming from hundreds of dead corpses of pigs left rotting for days at the farms. "Our doctors have not had access to the American [company's] farms to effect routine inspections," said Csaba Daroczi, assistant director at the Timisoara Hygiene and Veterinary Authority. "Every time they tried, they were pushed away by the guards. Smithfield proposed that we sign an agreement that would oblige us to warn them three days before each inspection." Mirel Bran: "Swine Plague: Romania Criticizes American Group’s Attitude", Le Monde, 15 August 2007, translated by Leslie Thatcher (Truthout). Eventually, it emerged that Smithfield had been concealing a major outbreak of classical swine fever on its Romanian farms. GRAIN, "Viral times - The politics of emerging global animal diseases", Seedling, January 2008
Mexico’s oligarchy fares no better against multinational corporate interests.
After countless efforts by the La Gloria community to get the authorities to help -- efforts which led to the arrest of several community leaders and death threats against people speaking out against the Smithfield operations -- local health officials finally decided to investigate in late 2008. Tests revealed that more than 60 per cent of the community of 3,000 people were infected, including "Patient Zero", the first emerged case.
http://www.grain.org/...
I can hardly wait until next year.