Did meat consumption cause SARS? (two articles)

[Guest guest]

OPINION

Did meat consumption cause SARS?April 29, 2003

 

(KRT) SARS - severe acute respiratory syndrome - is crossing the globe

bringing fear and death with it. No one, not even the infectious disease

experts gathering in China where SARS originated, knows what course this

virus will take. It could fade after a few months or it could spread, infect

millions and cause hundreds of thousands of deaths.

One thing we do know, SARS appears to be the latest example of a virus

leaping from animals to people. SARS and many other viruses are harmless to

animals, but they mutate and become deadly when introduced to the human

system. SARS evolved in China's Guangdong province, where 80 million people

share living space with the ducks, chickens, pigs, shrimp and carp they later

eat. Chicken waste is fed to pigs. Pig waste is dumped in ponds where shrimp

and carp are raised for food. All the animals are crowded into small spaces.

One scientist called this area " a complete soup of chemicals and viruses. "

Another explained, " A virus gets into a duck, it jumps to the pig. It

mutates, the pig excretes it and humans can become infected. "

The World Health Organization reports that the annual influenzas that sicken

and kill thousands every year almost always originate in southern China and

Hong Kong, where the conditions are perfect for viruses to spread and mutate.

The Hong Kong avian flu of 1997 jumped from chickens to people, making

hundreds ill and killing six. One and a half million chickens were

slaughtered to stop the spread.

But history shows that viruses can appear anywhere animals are crowded

together or treated in ways that are unnatural to them. The influenza

epidemic of 1918, which swept the globe killing more people than the two

world wars combined, originated in pigs. New variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob

disease, known as mad cow disease, is the result of a sickness that spreads

from sheep to cows and finally to people who eat infected animals. It is

believed to have originated as a brain disease in sheep. It infected cattle

when farmers, in a cost-cutting measure, mixed sheep brain tissue into cattle

feed, even though cows are naturally vegetarian.

In addition to SARS, animals killed for consumption are also likely to carry

listeria, salmonella, leukosis (chicken cancer), campylobacter and E. coli

bacteria, which thrive in crowded, filthy conditions. The speed up in the

slaughter process, to provide ever more meat to Americans, has made

contamination not just likely, but inevitable. These bacteria sicken 8

million people every year in the United States.

To see this and do nothing to change the situation, to refuse to fix it at

the source, is a crime. Imagine the animals, crammed together in tiny spaces,

living above their own waste, never breathing fresh air or knowing the feel

of sunshine on their backs, never knowing a moment's joy or contentment.

Their dreadful lives should be enough to inspire change. But if they are not,

we must realize that we may be setting the course for our own destruction

with our cavalier use and manipulation of other animals. The best way to make

a difference, in the animals' lives as well as own, is to stop eating

animals. At the very least, close confinement farms should be cleaned up and

animals given space, fresh air, decent food and consideration for their needs.

(

http://www.theeastcarolinian.com/vnews/display.v/ART/2003/04/29/3eaea0dd0cbfa)

 

THE RISE OF A VIRUS

 

From China's Provinces, a Crafty Germ Spreads

 

By ELISABETH ROSENTHAL

 

 

HUNDE, China ó An hour south of Guangzhou, the Dongyuan animal market

presents endless opportunities for an emerging germ. In hundreds of cramped

stalls that stink of blood and guts, wholesale food vendors tend to veritable

zoos that will grace Guangdong Province's tables: snakes, chickens, cats,

turtles, badgers, frogs. And, in summer, sometimes rats, too.

Advertisement

 

They are all stacked in cages one on top of another ó which in turn serve as

seats, card tables and dining quarters for the poor migrants who work there.

On a recent morning, near stall 17, there were beheaded snakes, disemboweled

frogs and feathers flying as a half-alive headless bird was plunked into a

basket.

If you were a corona virus, like the one that causes severe acute respiratory

syndrome, known as SARS, it would be easy to move from animals to humans in

the kitchens and food stalls of Guangdong, a province notorious for exotic

cuisine prepared with freshly killed beasts.

Indeed, preliminary studies of early SARS victims here in Guangdong have

found that an unusually high percentage were in the catering profession ó a

tantalizing clue, perhaps, to how a germ that genetically most resembles

chicken and rodent viruses has gained the ability to infect thousands of

humans.

One of the earliest cases, last December, was a seller of snakes and birds

here who died at Shunde's First People's Hospital of severe pneumonia. His

wife and a several members of the hospital staff contracted it as well,

setting off an outbreak that now sounds eerily familiar.

" Oh yes, I heard that a guy here died of that pneumonia, " said Li Songyu, a

40-year-old wearing a neat tan blouse, as she filleted live frogs and dumped

them into a basket. " But it is very safe and sanitary now. "

Around the same time in December, Huang Xinchu, a chef, was admitted to the

Heyuan People's Hospital, 100 miles to the north, ultimately infecting eight

doctors there. On Jan. 2, another desperately ill chef was hospitalized in

the city of Zhongshan, south of Shunde, setting off an outbreak.

But if such early outbreaks present scientific hints about the origin of

SARS, they also provide painful political lessons in how a disease that has

spread worldwide could have been prevented.

In early January, alarmed health departments in Shunde, Heyuan and Zhongshan

all reported the strange pneumonia clusters to Guangdong provincial

authorities, who concluded that they were facing a highly infectious

pneumonia caused by a previously unknown agent.

It is unclear whether that conclusion was passed on by provincial officials

to the Ministry of Health in Beijing, or ever reported to international

health agencies that might have conducted an early investigation into the

problem. Instead, it would be another two and a half months before the

strange pneumonia had a name, coined only after an Italian doctor working in

Hanoi, Vietnam, alerted the World Health Organization about a similar new

pneumonia he was seeing there.

And it would be three and a half months before China's leaders would admit

that their country had an epidemic of SARS. From January through the middle

of March, doctors in Asia and Canada were encountering patients carrying a

virulent and highly contagious germ, unaware that they were facing

potentially lethal infection.

During that period, hundreds of health workers fell ill. During that period,

well-meaning doctors were placing SARS patients in ordinary wards ó as they

would patients with normal pneumonia ó and those patients were passing the

infection on to hundreds of others.

Origins in Food Trade

 

Scientists have always considered the teeming farms of southern China, where

animals and people crowd together as ideal breeding grounds for new human

viruses, which can jump between species under such conditions. So it was no

surprise in March when the World Health Organization said it believed that

SARS originated in Guangdong.

But when a World Health Organization delegation went to look at data on the

earliest SARS cases, they found few farmers among the victims. Instead what

jumped out was an odd preponderance of food handlers and chefs ó about 5

percent of the first 900 patients, as opposed to less than 1 percent among

patients with normal pneumonia.

 

(for more info see

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/04/27/health/27SARS.html?ex=1052539200 & en=ddf44dcc

 

796af358 & ei=5070 )

[Guest guest]

To paraphrase Malcolm X, the chickens have come home to roost.

 

Tom

 

-

<shahara9

<TerraSoLuna >;

Thursday, May 08, 2003 6:12 AM

Did meat consumption cause SARS? (two articles)

 

 

> OPINION

> Did meat consumption cause SARS?April 29, 2003

>

> (KRT) SARS - severe acute respiratory syndrome - is crossing the globe

> bringing fear and death with it. No one, not even the infectious disease

> experts gathering in China where SARS originated, knows what course this

> virus will take. It could fade after a few months or it could spread,

infect

> millions and cause hundreds of thousands of deaths.

> One thing we do know, SARS appears to be the latest example of a virus

> leaping from animals to people. SARS and many other viruses are harmless

to

> animals, but they mutate and become deadly when introduced to the human

> system. SARS evolved in China's Guangdong province, where 80 million

people

> share living space with the ducks, chickens, pigs, shrimp and carp they

later

> eat. Chicken waste is fed to pigs. Pig waste is dumped in ponds where

shrimp

> and carp are raised for food. All the animals are crowded into small

spaces.

> One scientist called this area " a complete soup of chemicals and viruses. "

> Another explained, " A virus gets into a duck, it jumps to the pig. It

> mutates, the pig excretes it and humans can become infected. "

> The World Health Organization reports that the annual influenzas that

sicken

> and kill thousands every year almost always originate in southern China

and

> Hong Kong, where the conditions are perfect for viruses to spread and

mutate.

> The Hong Kong avian flu of 1997 jumped from chickens to people, making

> hundreds ill and killing six. One and a half million chickens were

> slaughtered to stop the spread.

> But history shows that viruses can appear anywhere animals are crowded

> together or treated in ways that are unnatural to them. The influenza

> epidemic of 1918, which swept the globe killing more people than the two

> world wars combined, originated in pigs. New variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob

> disease, known as mad cow disease, is the result of a sickness that

spreads

> from sheep to cows and finally to people who eat infected animals. It is

> believed to have originated as a brain disease in sheep. It infected

cattle

> when farmers, in a cost-cutting measure, mixed sheep brain tissue into

cattle

> feed, even though cows are naturally vegetarian.

> In addition to SARS, animals killed for consumption are also likely to

carry

> listeria, salmonella, leukosis (chicken cancer), campylobacter and E. coli

> bacteria, which thrive in crowded, filthy conditions. The speed up in the

> slaughter process, to provide ever more meat to Americans, has made

> contamination not just likely, but inevitable. These bacteria sicken 8

> million people every year in the United States.

> To see this and do nothing to change the situation, to refuse to fix it at

> the source, is a crime. Imagine the animals, crammed together in tiny

spaces,

> living above their own waste, never breathing fresh air or knowing the

feel

> of sunshine on their backs, never knowing a moment's joy or contentment.

> Their dreadful lives should be enough to inspire change. But if they are

not,

> we must realize that we may be setting the course for our own destruction

> with our cavalier use and manipulation of other animals. The best way to

make

> a difference, in the animals' lives as well as own, is to stop eating

> animals. At the very least, close confinement farms should be cleaned up

and

> animals given space, fresh air, decent food and consideration for their

needs.

>

 

>

http://www.theeastcarolinian.com/vnews/display.v/ART/2003/04/29/3eaea0dd0cbf

a)

>

> THE RISE OF A VIRUS

>

> From China's Provinces, a Crafty Germ Spreads

>

> By ELISABETH ROSENTHAL

>

>

> HUNDE, China ó An hour south of Guangzhou, the Dongyuan animal market

> presents endless opportunities for an emerging germ. In hundreds of

cramped

> stalls that stink of blood and guts, wholesale food vendors tend to

veritable

> zoos that will grace Guangdong Province's tables: snakes, chickens, cats,

> turtles, badgers, frogs. And, in summer, sometimes rats, too.

> Advertisement

>

> They are all stacked in cages one on top of another ó which in turn serve

as

> seats, card tables and dining quarters for the poor migrants who work

there.

> On a recent morning, near stall 17, there were beheaded snakes,

disemboweled

> frogs and feathers flying as a half-alive headless bird was plunked into a

> basket.

> If you were a corona virus, like the one that causes severe acute

respiratory

> syndrome, known as SARS, it would be easy to move from animals to humans

in

> the kitchens and food stalls of Guangdong, a province notorious for exotic

> cuisine prepared with freshly killed beasts.

> Indeed, preliminary studies of early SARS victims here in Guangdong have

> found that an unusually high percentage were in the catering profession ó

a

> tantalizing clue, perhaps, to how a germ that genetically most resembles

> chicken and rodent viruses has gained the ability to infect thousands of

> humans.

> One of the earliest cases, last December, was a seller of snakes and birds

> here who died at Shunde's First People's Hospital of severe pneumonia. His

> wife and a several members of the hospital staff contracted it as well,

> setting off an outbreak that now sounds eerily familiar.

> " Oh yes, I heard that a guy here died of that pneumonia, " said Li Songyu,

a

> 40-year-old wearing a neat tan blouse, as she filleted live frogs and

dumped

> them into a basket. " But it is very safe and sanitary now. "

> Around the same time in December, Huang Xinchu, a chef, was admitted to

the

> Heyuan People's Hospital, 100 miles to the north, ultimately infecting

eight

> doctors there. On Jan. 2, another desperately ill chef was hospitalized in

> the city of Zhongshan, south of Shunde, setting off an outbreak.

> But if such early outbreaks present scientific hints about the origin of

> SARS, they also provide painful political lessons in how a disease that

has

> spread worldwide could have been prevented.

> In early January, alarmed health departments in Shunde, Heyuan and

Zhongshan

> all reported the strange pneumonia clusters to Guangdong provincial

> authorities, who concluded that they were facing a highly infectious

> pneumonia caused by a previously unknown agent.

> It is unclear whether that conclusion was passed on by provincial

officials

> to the Ministry of Health in Beijing, or ever reported to international

> health agencies that might have conducted an early investigation into the

> problem. Instead, it would be another two and a half months before the

> strange pneumonia had a name, coined only after an Italian doctor working

in

> Hanoi, Vietnam, alerted the World Health Organization about a similar new

> pneumonia he was seeing there.

> And it would be three and a half months before China's leaders would admit

> that their country had an epidemic of SARS. From January through the

middle

> of March, doctors in Asia and Canada were encountering patients carrying a

> virulent and highly contagious germ, unaware that they were facing

> potentially lethal infection.

> During that period, hundreds of health workers fell ill. During that

period,

> well-meaning doctors were placing SARS patients in ordinary wards ó as

they

> would patients with normal pneumonia ó and those patients were passing the

> infection on to hundreds of others.

> Origins in Food Trade

>

> Scientists have always considered the teeming farms of southern China,

where

> animals and people crowd together as ideal breeding grounds for new human

> viruses, which can jump between species under such conditions. So it was

no

> surprise in March when the World Health Organization said it believed that

> SARS originated in Guangdong.

> But when a World Health Organization delegation went to look at data on

the

> earliest SARS cases, they found few farmers among the victims. Instead

what

> jumped out was an odd preponderance of food handlers and chefs ó about 5

> percent of the first 900 patients, as opposed to less than 1 percent among

> patients with normal pneumonia.

>

> (for more info see

>

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/04/27/health/27SARS.html?ex=1052539200 & en=ddf44d

cc

>

> 796af358 & ei=5070 )

>

>

>

> To send an email to -

>

>

[Guest guest]

I have heard that the SARs (Peter says it should be ARS because you cannot

really have a 'severe acute') is a mixture of the mumps and measles virus

and would appear to be man-made. I have also heard that it is passed from

one person to another and that it is then extremely unlikely to be passed on

by that person, which sounds like the way you can catch a disease from

someone who has been vaccinated with live vaccine.

 

It's worth considering, and wondering where it was made????

 

Jo

 

 

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