6 ms·

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

32 points by wglb 3y ago

myshpa 3y ago
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/journal.ppat.1011476 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 ...
- nomel 3y ago
  > If only there were a way to prevent zoonotic diseases originating from our animal agriculture ... This seems impossible, other than having them not exist.
  - myshpa 3y ago
    You're onto something ;)
    - surgical_fire 3y ago
      Pigs are delicious though.
      - myshpa 3y ago
        Yep ... there's always something that makes us do those things that our descendants will view with contempt.
    - nradov 3y ago
      No thanks, I'll take my chances with the flu.
      - civilitty 3y ago
        At least it will come bacon wrapped [1]. [1] Totally worth it.
        myshpa 3y ago
        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 ;)
  - colechristensen 3y ago
    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...
    - myshpa 3y ago
      > reducing concentration of animal production would have a significant effect Yep, not gonna happen. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/nov/25/chinas-26-storey-pig-skyscraper-ready-to-produce-1-million-pigs-a-year https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/nov/25/chinas-2... https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-swinefever-muyuanfoods-change-s-idUSKBN28H0MU 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.
  - flangola7 3y ago
    Yes, and? Massive factory farms are not a law of physics. Their existence is entirely at our discretion.
- zoklet-enjoyer 3y ago
  Go vegan!
  - jjcon 3y ago
    Or even kosher and halal
    - myshpa 3y ago
      Vegan and kosher or halal are not comparable. How Cauliflower is Harvested https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9BwpM6prR8s 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-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/ https://reducing-suffering.org/kosher-slaughter-humane/ PETA Reveals Extreme Cruelty at Kosher Slaughterhouses https://www.peta.org/features/agriprocessors/ 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-undercover-film-exposes-brutality-of-halal-industry-10019467.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/outcry-after...
      - zoklet-enjoyer 3y ago
        Yeah but we're talking about passing viruses between humans and pigs.
        3y ago
- gochi 3y ago
  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.
  - colechristensen 3y ago
    Uh, aren't all of these transmissions happening between live pigs and humans?
    - myshpa 3y ago
      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.
ggm 3y ago
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...)
- myshpa 3y ago
  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
  - jfoster 3y ago
    Too many problems there is actually a good thing, because it means solving each one should yield some incremental reduction in risk.
    - ggm 3y ago
      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.
      - myshpa 3y ago
        > 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.

32 points by wglb 3y ago

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/journal.ppat.1011476 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 ...

nomel 3y ago
> If only there were a way to prevent zoonotic diseases originating from our animal agriculture ... This seems impossible, other than having them not exist.
- myshpa 3y ago
  You're onto something ;)
  - surgical_fire 3y ago
    Pigs are delicious though.
    - myshpa 3y ago
      Yep ... there's always something that makes us do those things that our descendants will view with contempt.
  - nradov 3y ago
    No thanks, I'll take my chances with the flu.
    - civilitty 3y ago
      At least it will come bacon wrapped [1]. [1] Totally worth it.
      - myshpa 3y ago
        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 ;)
- colechristensen 3y ago
  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...
  - myshpa 3y ago
    > reducing concentration of animal production would have a significant effect Yep, not gonna happen. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/nov/25/chinas-26-storey-pig-skyscraper-ready-to-produce-1-million-pigs-a-year https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/nov/25/chinas-2... https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-swinefever-muyuanfoods-change-s-idUSKBN28H0MU 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.
- flangola7 3y ago
  Yes, and? Massive factory farms are not a law of physics. Their existence is entirely at our discretion.
zoklet-enjoyer 3y ago
Go vegan!
- jjcon 3y ago
  Or even kosher and halal
  - myshpa 3y ago
    Vegan and kosher or halal are not comparable. How Cauliflower is Harvested https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9BwpM6prR8s 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-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/ https://reducing-suffering.org/kosher-slaughter-humane/ PETA Reveals Extreme Cruelty at Kosher Slaughterhouses https://www.peta.org/features/agriprocessors/ 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-undercover-film-exposes-brutality-of-halal-industry-10019467.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/outcry-after...
    - zoklet-enjoyer 3y ago
      Yeah but we're talking about passing viruses between humans and pigs.
      - 3y ago
gochi 3y ago
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.
- colechristensen 3y ago
  Uh, aren't all of these transmissions happening between live pigs and humans?
  - myshpa 3y ago
    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.

ggm 3y ago

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...)

myshpa 3y ago
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
- jfoster 3y ago
  Too many problems there is actually a good thing, because it means solving each one should yield some incremental reduction in risk.
  - ggm 3y ago
    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.
    - myshpa 3y ago
      > 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.