'Swine flu' strain has passed from humans to swine ~400 times since 2009: study | Hacker News Reader

'Swine flu' strain has passed from humans to swine ~400 times since 2009: study

medicalxpress.com

32 pointswglb31 comments

These data suggest controling IAV infections in humans working with swine can minimise spillover into pigs

So something as simple as vaccination and biosecurity which of course will be shouted down as an externality cost by piggeries, could save potentially billions if not trillions of lost production, herd culling and of course human lives.

Do we pay farmers/farm-workers enough to cover this cost/benefit? no, we don't. There is probably zero incentive in any sector outside of the EU and barely there, to do this. It's going to take legislation and given China's herd and the cost focus and risk of zoonotic infection, I think its unlikely it will happen at scale until after a catastrophic herd loss. "just like the last time"

(yes, vegetarians have another proposal...)

Still, overcrowding of individuals in one space, no natural light, often very unsanitary environment, many sick, fed excessive amounts of antibiotics just to keep them alive, sharing space with wildlife, like bats and rats ... too many problems there imho

Too many problems there is actually a good thing, because it means solving each one should yield some incremental reduction in risk.

TBF pretty much all farms in Oz and the UK now have "no entry ring first" and animal production biosafety overall is much more stringent. I think in China too but I don't know how strong the regulatory oversight is.

Vaccinating workers and avoiding Influenza A risk seems like cheap wins. My hyperbole about "won't happen" is over cynical.

> no entry ring first

That's not for the prevention of zoonotic diseases; it's to prevent the public from knowing the conditions in which the animals are living and how they're being handled.

> Vaccinating workers and avoiding Influenza A risk seems like cheap wins

Sure, there will be some countries doing that. Some won't.

Yes. Less meat in the diet might go to more humane production but I suspect not. I try not to think about the Simpson's talking cow episode voiced very distinctly in a jewish accent with sonderlager overtones.

I love eating meat. Pork especially.

> Less meat in the diet might go to more humane production but I suspect not

So more meat is better?

> I love eating meat. Pork especially.

I did too. All the time. Too many reasons not to, though (environmental, biodiversity, health/zoonotic diseases, sustainability, even some ethical, maybe), too few reasons to continue (just habit, tradition, convenience, taste).

>I love eating meat. Pork

As omnivores it's difficult to understate how tasty animal meats and fats are compared to their vegetarian alternatives.

The strain of influenza A responsible for the 2009 H1N1 pandemic - pdm09 - has passed from humans to pigs 370 times since 2009. And once in pigs, the virus evolved into new strains, which then jumped back from pigs to humans.

https://journals.plos.org/plospathogens/article?id=10.1371/j...

If only there were a way to prevent zoonotic diseases originating from our animal agriculture ...

> If only there were a way to prevent zoonotic diseases originating from our animal agriculture ...

This seems impossible, other than having them not exist.

I have a feeling hygiene and reducing concentration of animal production would have a significant effect.

Turns out when you have thousands of animals living their entire lives in a packed building makes it pretty easy for disease to spread. And when you have humans that regularly visit those buildings...

> reducing concentration of animal production would have a significant effect

Yep, not gonna happen.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/nov/25/chinas-2...

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-swinefever-muyuanfo...

85,000 at one time, 1,000,000 every year.

Second facility is being built.

> a feeling hygiene ... would have a significant effect

> when you have humans that regularly visit those buildings

I think that at the necessary scale it's not possible.

Disease transmission risk would still persist due to transportation and slaughter processes. Some diseases could spread via undercooked milk or meat, and then circulate undetected within humans for a long time.

Even if we constructed near-sterile facilities, a significant number of operations worldwide would still be conducted unsafely. Avian influenza for example is spreading rapidly, allegedly even to wild mammals in South America, cross-contaminating our large domestic bird stocks and mutating there nobody-knows-how.

Yes, and?

Massive factory farms are not a law of physics. Their existence is entirely at our discretion.

You're onto something ;)

No thanks, I'll take my chances with the flu.

At least it will come bacon wrapped [1].

[1] Totally worth it.

We've been lucky so far (covid, hiv, BSE, avian flu, swine fewer, ebola, zika, bubonic plague).

Next time it could easily be something highly contagious with long asymptomatic period, high lethality, wide host range and rapid mutation rate, and without existing treatments or vaccines. [0]

[0] That would be fun ;)

Pigs are delicious though.

Yep ... there's always something that makes us do those things that our descendants will view with contempt.

I wonder if the process has been accelerated due to how much of the animal we use in food adjacent and non-food products, which aren't anywhere near as looked at as the "pure" food treatments. Potentially an example of how our traditional belief "don't waste the kill" having negative consequences when taken outside of the traditional uses of a kill, as we now have dozens and dozens of products coming from a pig that aren't edible.

Uh, aren't all of these transmissions happening between live pigs and humans?

The risk is extremely low, but still exists (because price pressure and contamination risks).

Some diseases could also spread via undercooked milk or meat.

It's funny though. Do you like eating hair with your pizza?

Flours often contain l-cysteine, for price reasons often produced not in a laboratory, but through the hydrolysis of human hair (mostly from asian countries iirc), poultry feathers, or hog hair.

Go vegan!

One must be really careful around here ;) This place isn't as enlightened and progressive as it believes itself to be.

No thanks.

Or even kosher and halal

Vegan and kosher or halal are not comparable.

How Cauliflower is Harvested https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9BwpM6prR8s

Many people believe that Kosher slaughter is painless, quick and merciful. In reality, animals who undergo a Kosher slaughter suffer immensely and are subjected to extreme violence. All this while being fully conscious and aware, as required in a Kosher slaughter.

https://www.kinderworld.org/videos/meat-industry/kosher-slau...

She told me that the first time she visited a kosher slaughter house, she heard screaming cattle from a half kilometer away. "Each terrified animal was forced with an electric prod to run into a small stall which had a slick floor on a forty-five degree angle. This caused the animal to slip and fall so that workers could attach the chain to its rear leg [in order to raise it into the air]. As I watched this nightmare, I thought, `This should not be happening in a civilized society.' In my diary I wrote, `If hell exists, I am in it.'"

https://reducing-suffering.org/kosher-slaughter-humane/

PETA Reveals Extreme Cruelty at Kosher Slaughterhouses

https://www.peta.org/features/agriprocessors/

Halal slaughter: Outcry after undercover film exposes brutality of industry

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/outcry-after...

Yeah but we're talking about passing viruses between humans and pigs.

Sure, thanks, my bad.

Woosh… umm.. this is a conversation about eating pigs… not virtue signaling about veganism

Yep, sorry, I overlooked the context. Other zoonotic diseases though ;)

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