WATKINS GLEN, N.Y. - October 26 - Dr. Allan Kornberg, pediatrician and executive director of Farm Sanctuary, the nation's leading farm animal protection organization, today issued the following statement about the next wave of swine flu outbreaks:

"With the world facing additional swine flu casualties, the crucial question of the virus' origins remains unanswered. Our dual priorities at this time must be minimizing the spread of H1N1 and determining where it came from, for only by identifying and fully understanding the source of its inception can we hope to form an effective defense against it in the coming months. Perhaps even more importantly, only by scientifically understanding how swine flu came to be can we prevent future outbreaks that claim an even greater number of lives in the coming years. 

We know for certain that swine flu was man-made (that is, it was formed under artificial conditions that do not occur in the natural world). Our goal, therefore, must be to pinpoint the combination of conditions that served as the virus' breeding ground and dismantle these elements so that they can no longer produce similar diseases. The various pieces of environmental and epidemiological evidence accumulated so far suggest: that swine flu incubated and formed in the pork industry's high-density factory farms, where it infected workers who passed the virus to their neighbors.

With tens of thousands of pigs tightly confined together in warehouses where they are steeped in their own feces, modern factory farms make virtually perfect laboratories for the development of unprecedented zoonotic disease strains. In addition to H1N1, which is caused by a virus, the only way producers can keep these selectively bred and physically mutilated pigs alive in such filthy environments is to lace their feed with massive doses of antibiotics. However, this produces medication-resistant bacterial pathogens that spread rapidly throughout entire herds because animals have no immunity to them. Such practices make for increased production and revenues, but carry a heavy price in hidden costs - among them the endangerment of public health and safety.

New and unpredictable human-animal viruses will continue to proliferate on factory farms as long as the meat industry is allowed to operate without meaningful government regulation, inspection or oversight. Now, as swine flu returns to exact more damage and take more lives, we must decide as a society which is more important: protecting human lives or pork industry profits. The first step in making the right choice is to find the smoking swine flu gun before another shot is fired, and pry it from the hand of the remorseless culprit who pulled the trigger."

An article from Dr. Kornberg on Swine Flu can be found on Farm Sanctuary's Web site at www.farmsanctuary.org/issues/factoryfarming/health/swine_flu.html.

If you are interested in speaking with Dr. Kornberg, please contact me at 646-369-6212 or mturner@farmsanctuary.org