http://www.dmregister.com/news/stories/c4788996/19134220.html

Human flu risk seen in livestock Health official warns bugs can develop if chicken and hog operations are too close together. By PERRY BEEMAN Register Staff Writer 09/05/2002

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- People in Iowa, the nation's top producer of pork and eggs, are at risk from nasty flu bugs that can be passed from chickens to hogs to people, a top state health official warned Wednesday.

Despite that warning, a committee formed by the Legislature to help counties protect Iowans from health threats associated with new livestock confinements took no action Wednesday on proposals to keep chickens and hogs apart.

It also took no action on a proposal to stop feeding antibiotics to healthy hogs and chickens to make them grow faster.

Learning that chicken and hog confinements are built close together "was a revelation to me," said University of Iowa microbiologist Mary Gilchrist, who serves on the committee.

"Instead of going henceforth into a potential disaster of developing new flu strains by having bacteria move from poultry to swine, we would be trying to prevent a major problem."

At the same time, Gilchrist said, Iowans face the prospect of swallowing a superbug that may develop in lake or river water, which may be more dangerous and harder to treat by its exposure to antibiotics, some of which are fed to livestock.

Members of the Master Matrix-Technical Advisory Committee are developing a scoring system - the state calls it a matrix - that counties could use to grade proposed confinements, awarding points for actions that would stem pollution and other impacts to the community. The Iowa Department of Natural Resources still would have the final say on whether a confinement permit is issued.

Debate on the scoring system is expected to continue today.

The scenario Gilchrist described surprised Kevin Vinchattle, executive director of the Iowa Poultry Association, who also is on the committee.

"You're saying that they jump from chickens to hogs to people?" Vinchattle asked Gilchrist.

"That's what they've been doing for decades," Gilchrist said.

Most flu outbreaks start in places where people raise chickens close to hogs, Gilchrist said. People often fight off the strains carried by chickens without knowing they were exposed, she said.

But when the viruses trade genes as they move through chickens and into hogs, they take forms that people have a much tougher time fighting, Gilchrist said. In some cases, victims die.

There was no information presented by the committee Wednesday on how many hog and chicken confinements are operating too close together in Iowa.

In Hong Kong, workers killed 1.2 million chickens and other birds to stop a flu outbreak in 1997, and several nations banned imports from the area. Six people died.

Committee member John Korslund, a veterinarian representing the Iowa Pork Producers Association, said most responsible farmers would keep chickens away from hogs because they don't want hogs to get sick. However, Susan Heathcote of the nonprofit Iowa Environmental Council said she has seen chicken confinements built next door to hog facilities.

Vinchattle opposed adding a separation distance to the scoring.

"I can't do that," he told Gilchrist. "For us to say that the influenza issue is tied to this - I don't think we have the knowledge."

Committee member Calvin Rozenboom of the Iowa Farm Bureau Federation also said he had"serious reservations" about limiting antibiotics and keeping cattle and hogs apart.

The 10-member committee includes representatives from farm and environmental groups, universities, the Department of Natural Resources, the Iowa State Association of Counties and the Iowa Department of Agriculture.

Members have considered giving points for farmers who keep confinements more than three-quarters of a mile from another confinement big enough to require a state permit. However, Gilchrist said the system should clearly say that all chicken and hog operations should be well separated and should describe the health implications.

The Iowa Environmental Protection Commission will review the scoring system at its meeting Sept. 16. The vote on setting up the scoring system is expected in October. The new scoring system is supposed to be in place March 1.

-- Anonymous, September 05, 2002

Answers

We must be very healthy people. We have raised hogs and chickens on our homesteads since we were children and almost never get sick. We sure don't feed any antibiotics though, and no one in our family has had to take any for any reason for over 15 years. I think these big factory farms are hotbeds for all sorts of diseases though, but they will be the last ones the government picks on. I suppose this will give them a reason to travel around to all the homesteads and tell us to kill either our chickens or hogs. We already can't move a goat in my state without a bunch of papers, or sheep or beef. If we all stand quietly and watch............all of us will either eat factory farm food or starve.

-- Anonymous, September 05, 2002