Flu traced to U.S. factory farms

Factory farms are driving family farmers out of business, polluting the environment, mistreating animals, and producing inferior food.

So it was par for the course when it was discovered that conditions at a factory pig farm led to the current swine flu outbreak. But it initially could not be traced anywhere beyond the farm near Mexico City.

Now the virus has been traced further - to U.S. factory farms. This influenza virus is the progeny of one that emerged in 1998 at farms in the U.S.

The emergence of that strain immediately followed the Republican Congress allowing factory farms to proliferate at a level never before seen.

Scientists warned that the virus would mutate to infect humans and touch off a pandemic - unless it was contained. Did government officials listen? Of course not.

Bob Martin of the Pew Commission on Industrial Animal Farm Production said factory farms "are super-incubators for viruses." Crowded conditions force pigs to stand in feces and spread disease.

In 2003, the American Public Health Association urged the government to ban contained animal feeding operations like those that characterize factory farms. The Bush regime ignored this plea.

After the government sat on its hands for years, the list of prosecutions of public officials ought to be long. But ending the proliferation of factory farms is an even more urgent priority.

(Source: http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/05/swineflufarm)