The Wake

Avian flu has evolved from a harmless virus in wild ducks to a deadly virus that may one day become the next catastrophic pandemic. In order to combat this infectious disease, millions of birds in Asia have been killed and a vaccine against the H5N1 strain of avian flu is under development in several countries, according to the World Health Organization.

These measures, though necessary, are not addressing the root of the problem according to Dr. Michael Greger, Director of Public Health and Animal Agriculture from the Humane Society of the United States. The next pandemic will be an unnatural disaster of our own doing, Greger says.

In a presentation given on Nov. 8 and hosted by Compassionate Action for Animals, Greger discussed how the change in farming practices over the past half a century has played a key role in the transformation of avian flu. In his new book, Bird Flu: A Virus of Our Own Hatching, he also outlines the toll an avian flu pandemic would take on the entire world.

An increase in the use of antibiotics on birds and the harsh overpopulated conditions of birds on poultry farms and in live markets prove to be the two clearest changes in the poultry farming industry, according to Greger.

In 1950, scientists announced that antibiotics make chickens grow faster. One year later, the Food and Drug Administration approved the addition of penicillin and tetracycline to animal feed in order to promote growth, Greger says. By 1970, 100 percent of all commercial poultry were being fed antibiotics.

In 1968, New Scientist magazine editorialized that the use of antibiotics to make animals grow faster should be abolished altogether. Also, the inventor of penicillin himself told the New York Times in 1945 that inappropriate use of antibiotics could lead to the selection of “mutant” forms resistant to the drugs, Greger says in his book.

“Mutating is what influenza viruses do best,” Greger says. The problem begins when they mutate into an antibiotic resistant strain of the virus. When birds receive the antibiotics, the majority of the viruses are killed. However, the strong strains that have developed a resistance will spread and multiply. This leads to a widespread and ever-growing resistance to antibiotics, causing any medical arsenal we may have had against avian flu to become useless, according to Greger.

In an effort to suppress a major avian flu outbreak, Chinese chicken farmers gave their livestock the human drug amantadine. Amantadine is an antiviral drug that was meant to protect people if an avian flu pandemic were to ever occur. But in 2004, researchers determined that the H5N1 strain of bird flu had become resistant to this human drug due to the virus’s mutation, Greger says.

This increased use of antibiotics in birds is not the only change the poultry farming industry has undergone in the past half a century. The cramming of thousands of birds into small cages, stacking them on top of each other and warehousing them in confining spaces are other changes.

Greger describes this lifestyle as a breeding ground for disease. These birds are living in overcrowded, filthy quarters, causing them to experience a great deal of stress and correspondingly increase their vulnerability towards disease.

“Highly concentrated poultry and pig farming, in conjunction with traditional live animal or ‘wet’ markets, provide optimal conditions for increased mutation, reassortment and recombination of influenza viruses,” Greger says.

This results in the rapid spread of disease first within the farm, and then out into the world.

This emergence and spread of disease does not happen in sparsely populated, open-air farms. “There has never been recorded a virulent strain of avian flu coming from an outside flock of chickens,” Greger says.

“We need to change the ways animals live,” Greger says. “This is not how animals were supposed to live.”

If we do not, we may unleash the most devastating pandemic to date. In 1918, a “Spanish flu” pandemic, a strain similar to avian flu, killed more people in 25 weeks then AIDS has in 25 years, according to Greger. However, that 1918 strain of flu had a less than 5 percent mortality rate. The H5N1 strain of avian flu currently spreading across the globe has about a 50 percent mortality rate, Greger says. If an H5N1 avian flu pandemic were to break out, it would be ten times as deadly as the worst plague in human history.

“The bottom line is, humans have to think about how they treat their animals,” Greger says. However, he is fearful that that will not happen until a post-pandemic world.