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In Brief
- Emerging threat: While the flu pandemic of 2009 was apparently mild, there is no way of knowing whether the next one will be a repeat or more closely resemble the killer disease of 1918.
- Early warning: After the 1997 avian flu scare, researchers developed pretty good surveillance programs to detect potentially deadly viruses that might jump from birds to people.
- Blindsided: The 2009 pandemic underscored the possibility that the greater threat may come from pigs, not birds, because it is typically easier for pig viruses to make the jump to people.
- Hamstrung: Economic considerations make it harder to get viral samples from pig farms in a timely manner, which frustrates health officials who want to be better prepared for the next pandemic.
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The 2009 influenza pandemic appeared to come out of nowhere. It started as what seemed like a lethal outbreak in Mexico, then spread north of the border. By the time health officials learned that the virus responsible for the alarming explosion of cases was new and an infection threat to most of humankind, they had no way to keep it from spreading around the world. By a stroke of luck, symptoms were mild in the vast majority of cases. What if next time we are not so lucky?
That question weighs heavily on the minds of influenza scientists and public health planners as they prepare for the next big outbreak. And there will be a next time. Flu viruses mutate constantly. Occasionally those changes result in viruses so different from what our immune systems have seen before that they are able to trigger global waves of disease, or pandemics. Someday there may be a vaccine that can fend off all subtypes of influenza, but such a vaccine remains a dream for now. So new viruses can and will come at us from birds or pigs or other animals. The best we can do is try to spot new invaders soon enough to get a jump on producing vaccines against those particular bugs, to shorten the time from first infections to mass immunizations. No one wants a repeat of 2009, when a vaccine arrived about the time the outbreak was peaking and public interest was waning.
This article was originally published with the title Flu Factories.
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5 Comments
Add CommentJust to whet your appetite a little more for reading this piece: the rest of the story examines the attempts by the CDC to monitor flu viruses on pig farms. (I know 'cause I edited Helen's piece for SciAm). Several health experts quoted in the article worry that the US does not have good enough surveillance of potential pandemic viruses that might be lurking on factory pig farms.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI'm using my prerogative as an editor to include just one more paragraph from Helen's terrific and sometime hair-raising article:
"Intensive monitoring of pig viruses is unlikely to come any time soon, however. Most pork-producing countries do not test their pigs at all, and in some that do—such as the U.S.—the testing is done on behalf of the pork producers, who have little economic incentive to share what they find. The reason: pig farmers know
pork prices plummet when pigs and flu are linked in the news. In the U.S., government agencies have pieced together a new program they hope will extract badly needed data without threatening the livelihood of producers. But many human health experts fear the compromises made to get pig farmers on board may hobble
the effort."
Helen is one of the world's top flu reporters. If you are at all concerned about preparing for the next pandemic flu, this article is definitely worth $5.99.
Date at the top of this article needs to be changed.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMinor error in Christine Gorman's comment above, where she writes:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"Helen is one of the world's top flu reporters."
No. Helen is THE world's top flu reporter. By a long shot.
"Economic considerations make it harder to get viral samples from pig farms in a timely manner"
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThat's a nice way of putting piggish greed over consumer health - shame on the producers AND the US Government!
Never a problem until it's a catastrophe.
I agree with the "Never a problem until a catastrophe" statement. But it isn't about putting consumers health at risk. One of the issues making it so difficult for public health authorities to get influenza specimens from swine is that it is often a mild illness in swine. So there isn't much incentive for American swine producers to collect the specimens in the first place.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisPlus, pork products from influenza infected swine are perfectly safe for consumers, so there isn't a direct human health link to pork products: a further disincentive to better flu surveillance in swine.
But the real disincentive is the threat of trade sanctions against American swine and pork products upon "discovery" of a new swine influenza virus. These hurt the American pork industry and drive prices up at the supermarket, further hurting the industry.
So that's the real irony in all of this. A virus that causes little health risk to consumers of pork can cause a real health risk to all humans by going undetected too long and emerging as a pandemic strain as occurred in 2009. But in order to keep pork prices low, and foreign markets open to American swine and pork, producers will not voluntarily allow routine influenza surveillance in the American swine herd.