Feeding Pig to Pig - Not the Only Risk

The pig health situation becomes ever more depressing on both sides of the Atlantic.

Britain's pig industry, with their accompanying band of veterinarians, continue to issue media releases insisting that the risks to pig health are swill (ie including pig meat -which is banned anyway) and ham sandwiches accidentally fed to pigs by the East Europeans that provide the cheap labour keeping a low productivity industry afloat.

The occasion is the anniversary of the 2001 FMD epidemic, which they continue to suggest was caused by swill. (It wasn't 2001, but 2000 and it wasn't swill!) Media Release here

America, at the same time, faced with PEDv, is feeding bits of piglets to sows in the desperate hope it will provide some kind of immunity. New York Times article here

So, one side of the Atlantic sees pig meat fed to pigs as the hazard, the other as the salvation. They are both wrong with no science anywhere, just bluster in an ever deteriorating international situation.

And no mention anywhere of the ever increasing volume of live pigs, semen and embryos crossing borders accompanied by recklessly issued health certificates: and little mention of the health risks to people and pigs arising from the antibiotic resistance arising from the frantic attempts to deal with co-infections.

Rich veterinarians and dead kids! It is a bleak future.