The least respectable end of social media has had much fun, at the writer's expense, for daring to query the science peddled by Britain's pompous corrupt veterinary establishment.
They received plenty of encouragement of various kinds from those with rather a lot to hide.
There is nothing so irritating as someone who says "I told you so!"
But you were told, often via the British newsgroup uk.business.agriculture.
The critics will have to overcome their irritation and shame. The writer got it right.
Eventually, I promoted the hypothesis, admittedly slightly tongue in cheek, and with a twinkle in my eye, but also with rather more knowledge at my disposal than was obvious to those that thought they knew better.
It was not playing the fool, but neither was the full horror of the human superbug crisis expected. This became no joke of any kind for anyone, including those far from pigs.
The Gardiner Hypothesis linked virus infections to MRSA and other bacterial disease in pigs, and explained the connection. The implications for human health are now obvious.
"Mutated Circovirus in pigs, the consequences treated with heavy use of antibiotics, is followed by MRSA in pigs and then MRSA and C.Diff epidemics in humans."
The writer always placed Porcine Circovirus (usually designated PCV2 nowadays) as the ghost at the feast, and in Britain dating back to 1999 or earlier, the date mattering. Later, PRRS surfaced in the scientific press, not least in the USA, but the connection between PCV2 and PRRS was unclear and reports very contradictory.
Now a paper makes the link, albeit reversing the significance (could it be different in different places?) and explains the role of antibiotics to try to control co-infections.
There will be more papers to come and explanations to be offered. But the pigs were sick in Britain before CSF2000, and FMD 2001, which is where the writer came in, intrigued and angered by the deliberate fabrications floated by the government veterinarians and others.
Oddly, my troubles and outrage were directed originally mainly at MAFF in Bury St Edmunds, original source of the Magna Carta, which brings us back to Democracy Day, first celebrated in the last days of the world's first, and undoubtedly last Vetocracy.
The barbarians really are at the gates for the veterinary establishment, but it was the descendants of the barbarians that reintroduced democracy to most of the world.
You can find the paper here:
The last words of the Field View summarise nicely.
"We must remember that viruses are not the only pathogenic agents affecting pigs with a respiratory complex; bacteria (secondary infections) are also present in many cases, and they will determine the severity of the process. Control of these secondary infections must be obviously based on antimicrobial treatments applied in time, but if we could delay the recirculation of PRRS virus, the animal itself would maintain a superior antimicrobial ability, which would allow for better results."
