Canada: Pigs found with swine flu virus

[babsbunny]

http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2009-05-02-canada_N.htm?csp=24&RM_Exclude=Juno

OTTAWA (AP) — Canadian officials say pigs in the province of Alberta have been infected with the new swine flu virus and are under quarantine.

It is the first known reported case of the new virus infecting pigs.

Swine flu regularly causes outbreaks in pigs, and the officials stressed that the pigs do not pose a food safety risk.

[Oregone]

I take it this is a bad sign

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20090502.wcanflu0502/BNStory/National/home

[nadinbrzezinski]

4. Actually this trivia in the article is good

“At this point in time, the issue of this being a human virus, having been introduced to the pigs, and the characterization of this virus, shows it is still that virus,” he said.

“There's been no adaptation identified through the transfer from humans to pigs at this time.”

Supports the theory that the virus is fairly stable... from my limited understanding of virology

[Oregone]

7. Oh, I saw that,

But the infection also implies that there is going to be a whole other incubating species for this virus (world-wide), and it may be more difficult to contain since not many pigs have universal health coverage and avoid doctors like the plague. Yeah, being that it hasn't mutated so far, thats a super good sign.

[nadinbrzezinski]

10. Yeah it is the so far

local virologist was on radio and said, look it could mutate into something that will tickle you pink and maybe give you a case of the sniffles

Or something much less benign

He used to work for CDC and did do the second wave 'splaining, but it was local NPR show

I WISH to see that on oh CNN or MNBC, not holding my breath

And he had the gallows humor fully developed

[Junkdrawer]

Do you get the feeling this is not going to end well?

:shrug:

[malaise]

9. Those factory farms

should be shut down and the pig industry is going to suffer big time.
Thankfully we don't eat any red meat or pork.

[Junkdrawer]

12. They're virus mutation factories...Here's a MUST READ article...

...

One of the first signs of trouble was a barking cough that resounded through a North Carolina farm in August 1998. Every pig in an operation of 2400 animals sickened, with symptoms similar to those caused by the human flu: high fever, poor appetite, and lethargy. Pregnant sows were hit hardest, and almost 10% aborted their litters, says veterinary virologist Gene Erickson of the Rollins Animal Disease Diagnostic Laboratory in Raleigh. Many piglets that survived in utero were later born small and weak, and some 50 sows died.

The culprit, a new strain of swine influenza to which the animals had little immunity, left veterinarians and virologists alike puzzled. Although related flu strains in birds, humans, and pigs outside North America constantly evolve, only one influenza subtype had sickened North American pigs since 1930. That spell was suddenly broken about 4 years ago, and a quick succession of new flu viruses has been sweeping through North America’s 100 million pigs ever since. This winter, for example, up to 15% of the 4- to 7-week-old piglets on a large Minnesota farm died, even though their mothers had been vaccinated against swine flu, says veterinary pathologist Kurt Rossow of the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities.

It seems that after years of stability, the North American swine flu virus has jumped onto an evolutionary fast track, churning out variants every year. Changes in animal husbandry, including increased vaccination, may be spurring this evolutionary surge. And researchers say that the resulting slew of dramatically different swine flu viruses could spell danger for humans, too. The evolving swine flu “increases the likelihood that a novel virus will arise that is transmissible among humans,” says Richard Webby, a molecular virologist at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee.

...

http://birdflubook.com/resources/WUETHRICH1502.pdf

[Buzz Clik]

1. Sweet Jeebus! Buy duct tape! Buy plastic sheets! Hide in your basements.

... right after the Bulls/Celtics game.

[HeresyLives]

2. A human gave it to the pigs!

[janx]

3. OK, this is getting ridiculous.

HOW do they know that the pigs got it from a human? Where is the evidence? The game of telephone is alive and well in the media.

[nadinbrzezinski]

5. Human works with pigs

human got sick

Pigs got sick later

Another human got sick later

It is called inference

After all the lab said all had A-H1N1

[HeresyLives]

6. Right here.

OTTAWA — Pigs at an Alberta farm caught the same swine flu strain that has sickened hundreds of humans around the world, federal officials said Saturday.

A farmhand who travelled to Mexico and fell ill upon his return apparently infected the pigs with the H1N1 influenza virus, said David Butler-Jones, Canada's chief public health officer.

“So far, basically what we're seeing in the pig is the same strain as we see in the humans,” Mr. Butler-Jones said.

“The concern is that if it's circulating in a pig herd, that any other humans that come onto the farm might be exposed and be at risk.”

It's believed to be the first known case of pigs catching the swine flu virus from humans.


http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20090502.wcanflu0502/BNStory/National/home

[Oregone]

8. Well, a couple of these pigs were vacationing with family in Baja, so...

yeah, they could of caught it on a trip. ;)

[Are_grits_groceries]

11. Some really nasty disease is going to come out of NC:

Pig Lagoons in the United States.
Pig farms with 100,000 animals produce the waste of a city of a quarter-million people, but have no wastewater treatment system. At a single site in Missouri, one pig factory produces fecal waste equivalent to that of a city of 360,000.

One of the main issues is the lagoons typically used by pig farms. Most are as big as football fields. In October of 1999, Hurricane Floyd swept through North Carolina. Spreading with the rain was feces and urine, mostly from giant pig farms. The storm killed more than two million turkeys, chickens, pigs and other farmed animals. Images of bloated pigs and turkey carcasses filled television screens. The storm destroyed more than $1 billion in crops and compromised the drinking water of a portion of the state, with more than 50 lagoons flooding.

In 1998, an Environmental Protection Agency water quality report to Congress cited agriculture as the leading source of pollution in 70% of impaired river miles. The Department of Environment and Natural Resources in North Carolina found 41 cases in which pollution from pig farms reached creeks, lakes, or rivers in 2000. They identified 285 cases in which pig lagoons were too full and in danger of spilling, and 338 cases in which pig farmers had sprayed too much pig waste onto crops as fertilizer. Over a billion fish were killed due to a pig waste spill into the Neuse River in North Carolina in June of 1995.
http://vegan.wikia.com/wiki/Animal_Products_cause_other

Every time I think about that water with all that animal crap in it sitting for days in the heat I get ill. I don't think people realize what a problem Hurricane Floyd was.
I am surprised that every single person there didn't get deathly ill. There is probably some nasty virus that has been gestating for 10 years.:scared: