Kathy Freston Dr. Michael Greger–Flu And Factory Farms
Written by Vegetarian Star on January 10th, 2010 in Animal Issues, Food & Drink, Nutrition-Health-Fitness.
Author Kathy Freston interviewed Dr. Michael Greger of the Humane Society of the United States to get his thoughts on the possible connection between recent outbreaks of the flu virus and factory farmed meat.
According to Dr. Greger, the first hybrid mutant strain of swine flu was found in a factory farm in North Carolina, where hundreds of pregnant sows were crammed together in crates.
Dr. Greger believes these conditions provide the environment necessary for viruses to emerge.
But does touching or eating meat actually increase your risk of contracting the virus?
“There are certainly lots of viruses people can pick up from handling fresh meat… There have been a number of cases of human influenza linked to the consumption of poultry products, but it’s not clear whether swine flu viruses get into the meat. Regardless, the primary risk is not in the meat, but how meat is produced. Once a new disease is spawned from factory farm conditions it may be able spread person to person, and at that point animals–live or dead–may be out of the picture.”
But in the end, it probably pays to go veg anyway.
“We’ve known for 20 years that the immune function of those eating vegetarian may be superior to those eating meat. First published in 1989, researchers at the German Cancer Research Center found that although vegetarians had the same number of disease-fighting white blood cells compared to meat eaters, the immune cells of vegetarians were twice as effective in destroying their targets–not only cancer cells, but virus-infected cells as well. So a more plant-based diet may protect both now and in the future against animal-borne diseases like pandemic influenza.”
Read Dr. Greger’s online book about bird flu at birdflubird.com.
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