by Pamela Rice

[NEW YORK CITY | JULY 2, 2005] Just plug in the numbers for a worst-case-scenario outbreak of bird flu—the current menace that is not only killing whole poultry flocks but also people—and one soon realizes that the human race is faced with a threat comparable to one for a massive tsunami or even nuclear war.

World health authorities are in concert with their warnings that an influenza pandemic is at hand and in fact overdue. And they're looking at this avian strain, which has hit hardest in Vietnam, as a likely precursor.

Possibly as many as a hundred million people died from the flu pandemic of 1918—this despite the fact that over 97 percent of those who became ill actually recovered. Compare this with the current strain, H5N1. It kills nearly two out of every three people it strikes. Thankfully, the total number of deaths attributed to it so far amounts to only 53, according the World Health Organization.

There is some indication that the death rate for H5N1 is going down, which indicates that the strain is on the move, that is, possibly mutating into one more easily transmissible person-to-person. As it stands, any change in the makeup of these bacteria is considered to be ominous.

Of course, this strain is already ominous, not only for its deadliness but for the disturbing way in which it is transmitted, that is, directly from birds—in this case Asian domesticated flocks. Before the arrival of H5N1 in 1997, no instance of bird-to-human influenza transmission had ever been documented.

In much broader perspective, "About 60 percent of existing human pathogens, and all of those which have appeared in the past 20 years, are known to have originated in other animal species," usually, it is believed, because of the human penchant for eating those species or what they produce, so says The Economist. Historically, the domestication of animals has not only meant the doom of mega-trillions of sentient beings via slaughter and on-farm death, it has also fostered many human diseases and therefore doom for millions of people. More-recent examples include the following:

• SARS is linked to at least seven wild species considered culinary delicacies in southern China.
• Ebola can be passed to humans from wild boar, monkey, and gorilla meat.
• HIV/AIDS, it is believed, was passed to humans in Africa after exposure to blood from SIV-infected chimpanzees, killed for their meat.
• New variant CJD (the human version of BSE, or mad cow disease) comes from the consumption of cow meat.

As for H5N1, is it just a matter of time before it mutates into a dreaded strain that can be transmitted person-to-person? According to the World Health Organization (WHO), "Evidence is mounting that, for at least some of the 15 avian influenza virus subtypes circulating in bird populations, humans themselves can serve as the 'mixing vessel'." Before H5N1, scientists believed that it was only the domesticated pig, raised in crowded conditions, that served this function—first contracting flu strains both from humans and from intensively raised poultry flocks infected by wild birds. Newly created strains would then be passed back to humans.

Based on recent history, the Royal Society (the independent scientific academy of the United Kingdom) predicted in 2004 that the world would see the emergence of 30 new diseases in as many years. There is every reason to believe that the trend of animal-to-human transmission will continue, particularly as the developing world adopts Western eating habits that include ample amounts of animal-based foods.

Meanwhile, scientists who study infectious diseases are all too aware that today's ubiquitous air travel could facilitate the spread of a contagious mutation of H5N1 across the globe almost instantly, perhaps in an afternoon. The WHO estimated in November that H5N1 could infect up to 30 percent of the world's population. If the disease retained its current high fatality rate, what is to say such a scourge wouldn't kill a billion people before it ran its course? The WHO estimates many fewer, perhaps 50 million deaths—still, a horrendous number.

Though simply doing away with intensive animal agriculture is all that is needed to virtually end any possibility of a so-called "antigenic shift," or drastic reassortment and merging of genetic material, public health officials go about preparing for the "inevitable" worst. And the rest of us are forced to accept this approach as if it were the only one.

As a vegetarian I substantially lower my risk for food-related illness, particularly when it comes to meat pathogens such as E. coli, campylobacter, and salmonella. But my vegetarianism would not save me from a flu pandemic. I would become an innocent bystander to this unthinkable horror. Needless to say, feeling smug about this is no desire of mine.

A recent headline screamed the simple solution to this terrible threat, "To fight bird flu go vegetarian, say animal protection activists." Go vegetarian? It seems to make a lot of sense right now.

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