“U.S. AT WAR. MYSTERY VIRUS LEAPS AROUND THE GLOBE KILLING SCORES IN ITS PATH. SCIENTISTS RACE TO FIND A CURE”.
This was a newspaper headline, not in recent years, but in 1918 when the Spanish Flu started to circulate. Although it was called the “Spanish Flu”, it actually originated right here in the USA.
One of the first recorded cases was on March 11, 1918, at Fort Riley, Kansas. Overcrowding and unsanitary conditions on a local duck farm created a fertile breeding ground for the virus to evolve. Within one week, 522 men at the army base had been admitted to the camp hospital suffering from the same severe influenza. Soon after, the army reported similar outbreaks in numerous states and navy ships docked at East Coast ports started reporting outbreaks of severe flu cases. The flu seemed to target military personnel and not civilians, so news about the virus was largely overshadowed by other current affairs such as Prohibition, the suffragette movement and the bloody battles in Europe. That focus all changed within a few short months once the pandemic was in full swing.
Spearheaded by hundreds of thousands of American troops heading to Europe to fight in World War I, the microscopic killer virus, H1N1, circled the entire globe in four months, infecting 30% of the World’s population and claiming the lives of almost 50 million. The United States lost 675,000 people to the Spanish flu in 1918. This was more casualties than World War I, World War II, the Korean War and the Vietnam War combined. Just to put things in perspective and relate those numbers to today’s pandemic, Covid thus far has killed 6.7 million worldwide but interestingly, the US has lost 1.1 million, a dramatically increased proportion of the planetary deaths compared with the Spanish Flu. More than 5x more. We‘ve lost so many despite having the best acute management healthcare system in the world. It’s a terrible preventive healthcare system, but it’s great at dealing with acute problems and propping people up with drugs and procedures for many years of continuous decline. The simple fact is that we are the fattest and the most unhealthy population on the planet, and thus, the greatest at risk for getting really sick and dying from Covid.
Today, an even more virulent strain of the flu has evolved. With a 100% kill rate in birds, H5N1 is ravaging the bird farms, particularly chicken farms, both egg and meat. It has had an obviously significant impact on the bird populations where many millions have died from the disease or have been killed, or “culled” as they call it in the industry. Culling, killing otherwise healthy animals, is done in part to try to stem the tide of the disease propagation.
This outbreak has impacted even the human food supply chain with eggs and chicken meat having dramatically increased in price and having even become scarce in some markets.
If you think you can bypass this issue by having your own chickens at home, be advised that cases of H5N1 have been identified even in private, backyard chicken coops. This virus has been identified in the wild bird population, which is how this is spreading. Even our local Philadelphia zoo has closed the avian exhibits to the public to prevent outside contamination.
The disease has now also spread to humans and even human to human spread has been identified. In humans, it is not as lethal as in animals but it is still pretty bad with a death rate of 40-60%. Compare that with a 2% death rate for Covid-19 or even 10% death rate of the Spanish Flu. It rivals some of the scariest human infections like Ebola, which has a ~ 50% death rate.
In addition to the avian flu, we also need to be concerned about Swine Flu. Last summer and fall, amidst a rise in swine flu in the crammed-in factory farmed pig populations, there were cases of this virus being contracted by humans at county fairs where people could interact with infected pigs. No human to human spread of Swine Flu has been identified yet.
All these infectious diseases, as are almost every other infection plaguing society, originate from, or are related to the mass production of animals for food or the unnatural relationship humanity has with the animals and the natural world. We raise them in filthy, horrific conditions and encroach on their habitats, increasing our exposure to their pathogens.
Although you won’t contract Avian or Swine flu from eating chicken or pork, there are plenty of other infections you can get, including diseases like salmonella or trichinosis. In addition, regular consumption of these animal products has a clear deleterious impact on many chronic diseases including diabetes and heart disease. Reducing their consumption on a mass scale would eventually lead to fewer and smaller-scale farms as demand decreases and hopefully, fewer diseases will result.
We simply do not need these foods to thrive. We eat them because we think we need to and we enjoy them, but that is not enough. Not today. Not when these diseases are expanding, antibiotic resistance is on the rise and global warming marches on. As I have written numerous times in the past, the animal agriculture industry is the greatest contributor to production of greenhouse gasses, global warming and the resultant climate change the planet is obviously experiencing.
From a general health perspective, the notion that “white meat” is healthy is also misguided and wishful thinking. For example, a steamed, skinless chicken breast has almost as much cholesterol and maybe 30-40% less fat than certain cuts of red meat, plus you have all the risks of salmonella and e coli infection. In addition, chicken is one of the biggest sources of salt in the standard American diet since brine is injected into the breast meat to plump it up. Lastly, chicken is the biggest source of antibiotics in the human diet. Antibiotics were first used in raising chickens as a growth stimulant in the 40s. The antibiotics we consume in the animal products people eat are the major contributor to the increasing incidence of multidrug resistance worldwide.
It’s interesting that during World War 2, in northern Europe, when the Nazis confiscated all the meat and dairy to feed their soldiers and the people had to rely on only the vegetables and grains they could find, that the incidence of cardiovascular disease including heart attacks and strokes dramatically dropped off. Levels rapidly returned to their pre-war levels once the war was over and people resumed their old diets.
Although consuming a small amount of animal products is not going to impact significantly on your health, people simply eat too much of them, usually with every meal in one way or another. The stats with respect to chronic disease rate and longevity start to turn once you go past 5-10% of your calories coming from animal products. When you consider that animal products tend to be very calorically dense, that 10% roughly amounts to only 1-2 meals a week containing meat, fish, eggs or dairy!
Of course you will read of people switching to a keto (low carb and high protein and fat) or even a carnivore diet who feel better, lose weight and have improved blood markers like blood sugar, uric acid and even in some cases, cholesterol. But these are all short term results. And their improvements are also significantly impacted by the likely removal of sugar and processed food from their diet. Most of these people will also often start exercising. BUT, these are short term gains. There are NO long-term studies showing sustained benefit from any of these diets but there are long term studies showing significant harm. Not to mention the fact that there are no populations on the planet eating this way. On the other hand, there are plenty of long term studies showing the benefits of a primarily whole food, plant based diet on health and longevity and there are numerous examples of plant-based societies thriving, living longer and healthier than the rest of us. Just look up the Blue Zones.
I’m rambling.
Please remember that Covid is still out there. Still infecting lots of people and killing over 500 a day, remaining the 3rd leading cause of death in the US.
Being careful is not just about protecting yourself. It’s about protecting everyone around you.
Stay Safe and Be Well
AC
