SARS and PIGS

FIRST CASE OF SARS IN A NEW SARS
SEASON MAY HAVE BEEN SEEN IN TAIWAN

Patient recently returned from China

The China Post today reported the first case of SARS in the new Flu season.

Accoding to the report, "A Kaohsiung hospital yesterday reported this winter's first SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome) case in Taiwan. Doctors at the Union Hospital said they diagnosed a resident of the southern Taiwan port city as a suspected SARS case. The resident, whose identity was withheld, visited the hospital in the afternoon. He showed a typical SARS symptom of a high fever, doctors said. 'He suffered from a 37.5 degree fever for two days before coming to us,' one doctor pointed out.The Kaohsiung resident returned from a trip to China not long ago."

AS WE APPROACH THE NEW SARS SEASON,
WE ARE REPRINTING AN OPEN LETTER THAT
WAS PUBLISHED IN THIS SPACE IN JUNE

AN OPEN LETTER TO THE DOCTORS AND NURSES IN TORONTO

Dear Doctors and Nurses of Toronto,

You have just been through Hell.

I've been following your story since the begining of the SARS epidemic.

Some of you have seen friends and colleagues suffer. Some of you have seen patients die. Some of you have been had the illness and recovered. Some of you have gotten the illness and feel like you will never be back to normal. Some of you fear that your illness will relapse and you'll have to go through it all again. All of you have been traumatized and your work conditions have been trying, to say the least. Many of you do not feel adequately compensated for what you have been through.

None of you want to see this happen again. Many of you must be on edge about statements that SARS could be seasonal and that come this autumn or winter, you might all have to go through a similar or worse crisis. You worry about your families and you worry about your future in the medical field. Is it possible you could end up spending the rest of your lives working in space suits to protect yourself from a SARS infection?

Most of you assume that the best minds in the medical field are working hard to understand SARS and that nobody is playing games or putting any financial agenda ahead of the goal of ending SARS as a health threat.

Since the beginning of the SARS epidemic I have been suggesting that pigs should be looked at closely as the possible source of SARS. For over a decade I have been writing about the respiratory diseases in pigs and when I first heard that SARS had broken out in a part of China which has a lot of sick pigs, I began writing about a possible link betwen SARS and a wide array of respiratory pathogens in pigs which include porcine coronavirus.

The World Health Organization has frequently spoken out about the need to identify the animal reservoir from which SARS sprang. Supposedly, the first animals found with SARS-associated coronavirus were civet cats which are sold in exotic animal markets in Guangdong Province in China. Unfortunately, because the virus was first found in civet cats, it was assumed that they must be the primary and only source of the SARS-associated coronavirus. To this very day, publications as prestigious as the Washington Post keep oversimplifying the matter by talking about civet cats as the source of SARS.

The problem is that since the civet cat research, the SARS-associated coronavirus has been found in snakes, bats, and perhaps most importantly, wild pigs. Finding the virus in pigs is most disturbing because 30% of the original cases in Guangdong Province were in foodhandlers. It seems reasonable to hypothesize that such a high a percentage suggests that the foodhandlers were handling pork or chicken rather than civet cats.

A very revealing story about the possible SARS connection to pigs appeared in the Baltimore Sun on May 14th. Gady A. Epstein, of the Baltimore Sun Foreign Staff, wrote a fascinating story about a farmer in the Chinese area where SARS is thought to have originated. Epstein found a farm where what sounds like SARS-like epidemic in pigs may have occurred. Epstein interviewed a woman named Zheng Haocai who lives with her husband on a farm south of Guangzhou. Her shack of a farmhouse is "cobbled together out of aluminum, lumber, tarpaper and plastic sheeting." According to Epstein, "Zheng is unable to afford feed for her pigs, so they eat factory and restaurant garbage, served out of blue plastic barrels of unidentifiable dark sludge that she buys for $2.50 a barrel."

In what could turn out to be the most important reporting on SARS to date, Epstein writes that "at feeding time, her chickens join the feast, pecking near the porkers and, in the end stall, among a handful of pigs set apart from the others. This small group, Zheng said, had recovered from a strange virus that struck dozens of her pigs with flu and diarrhea a few months ago." And Epstein reports that the woman said, "This year we've had a lot of pigs get sick, and even when I give them medicine, they don't get better."

Epstein also reported that "a few feet from the pen lies an open box filled with empty syringes, used medicine bottles and torn packets of fever remedies that Zheng used with little success. Out of a group of 80 pigs she bought this year, she said, half died." Epstein reported that the woman said, "They got fever and didn't want to eat."

Every doctor and nurse in Toronto and the rest of the world has an investment in knowing whether the pigs in Guangdong Province are infected with the SARS-associated coronavirus. There is no indication that the CDC or the World Health Organization is in any hurry to thoroughly investigate the matter.

According to the High Plains Journal, a study was conducted by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency into whether young pigs in Canada could transmit the virus. The study is shoddy to say the least. According to the study, there was some replication by the SARS-associated coronavirus but the pigs didn't get sick and didn't seem to spread the virus. Some replication? Despite it's claims that pigs are not involved, the study doesn't prove that pigs of a wide variety of ages and health conditions in China aren't carriers of the SARS-associated coronavirus. If anything, the fact that pigs can be transiently infected seems to call for more research, not stonewalling.

One thing that caught my eye early in my own SARS investigation was a study of pigs done in Japan. The research on several hundred pigs in Japan suggested that coronaviruses move back and forth with great ease between people and pigs. If the SARS-associated coronavirus is endemic in Chinese pigs, and it moves back and forth with great ease, we can expect a far worse SARS epidemic when the weather changes. For all we know, the SARS-associated coronavirus could be spreading without visible signs of mortality throughout all the pig herds in China. Now that China seems to be returning to its old program of news censorship, there's no telling what is going on in the pigs in China. China has covered up past epidemics in its pigs.

The most important point I want in this letter is that the leading pig researchers who should be out there warning about the possibility that pigs will be a huge reservoir for the SARS-associated coronavirus, are by and large so much in bed with the pork industry that they dare not make an independent peep. They live in fear of the industry that finances them. A SARS connection to pigs would create an unprecedented international problem with almost apolcalyptic financial implications.

The pig researchers I spoke with early on in the SARS epidemic almost universally hostile to any discussion of pigs as a source of SARS. If the medical community in Totonto wants to find out the truth about pigs and SARS, it may have to finance research independent of the pig research estalishment.

It is laughable that some in the pig research community have talked about their ability to help research the SARS epidemic with their knowledge of coronaviruses, but have refused to discuss pigs as a possible or probable source of the SARS epidemic.

The truth about the health of pigs in every province in China matters a great deal to you, the nurses and doctors of Toronto. To avoid another hellish round of SARS, I hope you will join me in demanding that the connection between SARS and pigs be investigated with integrity and diligence. Millions of lives may depend on this politically sensitive research.

Charles Ortleb
rubiconmedia@yahoo.com

THE NEW YORK TIMES GETS YET ANOTHER
EPIDEMIC WRONG

The New York Times, which to this day still has not reported the true story about AIDS, CFIDS and HHV-6, now has shifted its monumental journalistic incompetence to the subject of SARS. An editorial in the Sunday paper gets it exactly wrong: "Health authorities are preparing for the possible return of the SARS virus this fall, but with any luck they should be able to prevent a global epidemic. The virus is a nasty germ that can inflict terrible harm on anyone who contracts SARS. But the virus is relatively hard to spread and the conditions that allowed the disease to race from nation to nation last season seem unlikely to repeat themselves."

Hard to spread? They should pay an intern to just Google the story. If they did they would know that many more people are positive for exposure to the the virus than got sick from it. Many people who handled wild animals in Guangdong Province in China have evidence of exposure to the virus--as many as 40% in one market.

The Times should consider sending a reporter to interview Henry Niman, the Harvard professor who has watched the Sars epidemic like a hawk for much of the last year. Niman has predicted for months that when the weather turns colder in China and elsewhere, a SARS apocalypse could occur. Since many animals are capable of contracting the virus, there could be many new reservoirs when the next SARS season begins.

The Times editorial comes close to chiding the CDC for panic-mongering. The Times should really try to get to the bottom of the SARS story before they make a judgment like that. They may have to eat their words. They should try and ascertain whether the CDC knows more than it is telling the public about the likelihood of an explosive new SARS epidemic. If Henry Niman's vision of the future is correct, we could have a major catastrophe in the United States and elsewhere this winter. SARS could end up being the number one issue in the next election.

One more suggestion for the Times. Investigate the role of pigs in the SARS epidemic. We predict they'll find a big story there.

WILD BOARS ARE BACK ON THE
SARS SUSPECT LIST

Has it spread to China's domestic pigs?

According to a report by Andy Ho in today's Straits Times, "A new study by Chinese researchers reported this week by the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention suggests that many people may have had Sars without showing symptoms. The study of 508 animal traders in Guangdong showed that more than half of those who handled civets, wild boars or muntjac deer, as well as a third of those who handled pheasants, had Sars antibodies."

NEW STUDY FAILS TO RULE PIGS OUT
AS SOURCE OF SARS

The Sars coronavirus is described as a "Frankenstein type"
virus that is partially related to a coronavirus
that infects pigs and other animals.

According to an article by Jenni Laidman in the Toledo Blade, "The SARS virus shows signs of Frankenstein-like construction, with one important gene cobbled together from two other viruses, a study by a University of Michigan researcher reveals."

According to the report, the scientists "discovered one end of the SARS replication gene was a sister to the coronaviruses that attack birds. The other end bore a resemblance to all other groups of coronaviruses, including those that prefer cattle, pigs and deer as well as those that attack rodents, horses and rhinoceroses."

As we have pointed out on this blog, there is some evidence that pigs in China may have died of a SARS-like illness prior to the outbreak of the illness in that country last year.As far as we know, there still has been no widespread testing for the Sars-associated coronavirus in pigs in the areas where SARS has broken out.

NEW RESEARCH SUGGESTS THAT THE SARS CORONAVIRUS
IS MORE WIDESPREAD AND OLDER THAN PREVIOUSLY THOUGHT

Are pigs the key to understanding the complications of SARS?

According to a report from South Africa's News24, "Recent studies in China indicate the pneumonia-like Sars virus might have existed in humans for some time, as scientists testing blood samples collected prior to the recent outbreaks found evidence of the virus."

According to the study, over 40% of 92 children at one Chinese hospital, who did not have symptons of SARS, tested positive for antibodies to the SARS coronavirus. Also, when scientists looked at over sixteen hundred samples of blood from Chinese adults taken between 2001 and 2002, they found that 16 people tested positive for the SARS coronavirus.

These findings raise questions about the conventional wisdom about SARS. The prevailing theory has been that SARS emerged from exotic animals and infected people at some point last autumn. Now it appears that the virus may have been circulating for some time. It also suggests that many more people may have been infected with the agent and not gotten the severe symptoms of SARS. In addition, the findings may suggest that other agents might be necessary to help the SARS coronavirus create the severe pathology associated with SARS.

The new findings also might support our suggestion that the complicated respiratory diseases circulating in pigs may be the key to understanding SARS.

IT LOOKS LIKE SARS II IS COMING SOON
AND WILL BE CATASTROPHIC

Over the last few days there have been somber reports that suggest that SARS is percolating in two or more species of animals out there. They come on the heels of what was clearly an outbreak of SARS in British Columbia that was swept under the rug. The British Columbia outbreak showed that mild forms of SARS exist and that the virus is probably spreading silently in many places, waiting for cooler weather to show its deadly face. Even the CIA sees nothing but bad news down the road, according to reporting by Laurie Garrett.

Henry Niman, a Harvard professor who has turned into one of the nation's leading SARS intellectuals, has been warning that SARS has continued spreading in the months since the first epidemic seemed to have ended. He cites the rather abrupt end of the first epidemic as proof that the virus does it most serious pathological work during what is usually considered the flu season.

Reports in Science magazine that civet cats and racoon dogs in China seem to be infected with a nearly identical SARS virus have caused a great deal of alarm since the Chinese have not made an effort to control these animals. And they may just be the tip of the iceberg. Several months ago there there was a report that the virus was found in wild pigs in China. And this blog has pointed out the curious story by Gady Epstein which ran in the Baltimore Sun about a farm in Guangdong Province in which half of the pigs died from a mysterious fever during the same period as the SARS epidemic. If the SARS virus is now spreading through pigs in China, the next SARS epidemic could dwarf the first one.

THE SARS-ASSOCIATED CORONAVIRUS
HAS BEEN FOUND IN A WIDE RANGE
OF ANIMALS IN CHINA

But are pigs the most threatening reservoir?

According to Straits Times, a recent investigation into the presence of SARS-associated coronavirus has found the virus in many different animals. It is unclear which animals are transmitting the virus to people. According to the report, "A Sars-like virus has been found in a broad range of animals, ranging from snakes and birds to mammals, a medical group said yesterday after returning from the epicentre of the virus in south China. The 14 United Nations and Chinese experts visited farms and markets in Guangdong province in search of a possible animal carrier of the virus, and were astounded to see how many different species were capable of infection."

Although the report did not mention pigs, a previous study had found the virus in wild pigs that were sold at a market in Guandong Province in China. Research we have mentioned before on this blog indicates that coronaviruses go back and forther between people and pigs quite easily. The coronavirus strain mentioned in the study, OC43, was recently found in patients who were thought to have SARS in a nursing home in British Columbia, Canada. There is ongoing confusion about whether the victims of a respiratory disease epidemic there are suffering from OC43 or the so-called SARS-associated coronavirus. On the Silicon Investor website, Henry Niman, a Harvard professor who has been following the virology of SARS epidemic very closely, expressed the concern that the SARS-associated coronavirus may have recombined with OC43. If that does turn out to be the case, studies showing the ease with which OC43 goes back and forth between pigs and people may become even more relevant.

SARS SPREADING IN CANADA AGAIN
AS AUTHORITIES TRY TO EXPLAIN IT AWAY

SARS now seems to come with a wide range of symptoms, making tracking it almost impossible


According to newscientist.com, an outbreak of pneumonia, which tests so far indicate may be caused by the SARS virus, appears to be spreading in British Columbia, Canada. The virus had already infected over 150 people and killed six at a nursing home near Vancouver, and now appears to have infected a second nursing home nearby."

IS THE INSIDIOUS FUTURE OF SARS
MANIFESTING ITSELF NOW IN A
CANADIAN NURSING HOME?

And, as WHO heads for a pig farm in China, it appears that rats may also be a vector

Great confusion now surrounds the outbreak of SARS or a SARS-like disease in a nursing home in a suburb of Vancouver in British Columbia. Apparently, in July, a number of residents of a nursing home came down with respiratory symptoms that were not as serious as SARS, but given that four people died and a SARS virus or a SARS-like virus was found in many of the patients, workers and residents of the nursing home, there is the real possibility that SARS now comes in several forms. And that means the future SARS epidemic could be nearly impossible to control with the public health tools that were employed during the first SARS epidemic. Chronic or inapparent cases of SARS could not effectively be tracked and quarantined unless the whole population was called in for testing. And even then the effort might be futile.

Meanwhile, BBC is reporting that a research published in the Lancet suggests that rats may be able to carry the SARS coronavirus.

And we are happy to report that according to Associated Press, scientists from the World Health Organization are actually going to visit a pig farm in Guangdong Province in China. Bowing to pressure from this blog, no doubt. Stay tuned.

IN A PUZZLING MOVE, CHINA WILL ALLOW
FARMS TO RAISE ANIMALS THAT MAY CARRY
THE SARS CORONAVIRUS
The World Health Organization is very concerned

The Straits Times today reported that China would no longer prohibit the raising of the very animals that may be resnsible for SARS.

According to the report, "China has allowed farms to resume selling masked palm civets, a species that may have been the source of the Sars virus, and 53 other exotic animals, although Chinese provinces retain the discretion to ban the consumption of these animals."

The World Health Organization has expressed concern that SARS will return when the weather changes because wild animals may be carrying the SARS-associated coronavirus.

HARVARD'S HENRY NIMAN SEES A SARS
APOCALYPSE COMING AS SOON AS
THE WEATHER GETS COLDER

The mutating virus seems to be spreading in the general population.

While we have mainly been concerned about the probable spread of the SARS-associated coronavirus in the pig population of China, Henry Niman, a Harvard Medical School scientist, has a more pressing concern. He thinks that the Sars-associated coronavirus has established a significant reservoir in the human population and as soon as the seasons change, a new SARS epidemic will explode and dwarf the first one. He doesn't write the whole screenplay, but between the lines of what he is saying is a disaster about to happen that could change life as we know it. We're talking about hospitals overflowing with SARS patients, economic collapse, thousands of people in quarantine, maybe even martial law. Of course it is always possible that we could get lucky and the SARS coronavirus won't have the heart to do it. But Niman's analysis of the available data is pretty persuasive.

Niman surfaced in the news months ago amid the confusion about what the mortality rate of SARS is. He blew the whistle on some fuzzy math that were suggesting that the mortality rate for SARS was in the range of 5%. A no-nonsense look at the actual number of cases by Niman revealed that the real mortality rate of SARS is and was always 15%. When Niman factors in as many as 25% of patients who don't die but also never fully recover, one gets a truly horrific picture of what SARS is. And what it is going to be is even more terrifyng, if Niman is right. Eight to twelve weeks from now could be the beginning of the kind a public health panic only seen in our lifetime in the movies. As Niman has said in several postings on various public affairs sites, we have trouble right here in River City.

On The Agonist site, Niman wrote in June, "The WHO conference on SARS in Malaysia has just ended with warnings to remain vigilant because SARS could re-emerge and the animal reservoir is not well defined. The SARS epidemic is about to enter the 2nd 100 days since WHO issued its alert, but it is not clear that officials are paying attention. SARS is not going to re-emerge from the wilds of Guangdong Province from some exotic animal. SARS is right here in River City, complete with a strong set of deletion and point mutations."

Ominously, he also wrote that "The data just released from the Canadian National labs in Winnipeg confirms the early data which showed evidence for the SARS coronavirus in probable and suspect cases as well as patients with symptoms who failed to meet the WHO case definition for suspect or probable cases. Many of their contacts were not interviewed or even identified. Investigators in Toronto as well as Hong Kong are now going back to do more widespread tracing on patients positive for the virus to better understand how far and wide the virus has spread. The finding of evidence of the SARS virus in patients with a broad spectrum of symptoms suggests the virus has spread quite widely. Molecular epidemiology can help trace the virus as well as mutations. It seems highly unlikely that the 29 nt deletion will be restored and it also seems unlikely that the various point mutations will go away. In the fall, when flu and cold season returns, the SARS symptoms will be masked by flu and cold symptoms as well as unrelated cases of atypical pneumonia. Co-infection of patients with coronaviruses such as 229E or OC43 and SARS coronavirus will also provide opportunities for novel recombinants. Such recombinants with the infectivity of a cold virus and the potential for causing a fatal pneumonia would represent a formidable challenge."

"Formidable challenge" is the way that academics say "Yikes!"

AND IF SARS BREAKS OUT IN
THE USA IN THE AUTUMN . . .

"If SARS becomes established here the way it did in Toronto, all hell is going to break loose," warns Arthur Kellermann, chairman of the department of emergency medicine at Emory University in Atlanta. "We're struggling to meet tonight's demand for 911 calls, much less a major respiratory disease."
--From The Wall Street Journal

ARE PIGS A SARS RESERVOIR IN CHINA?
Maybe someone should interview
Zhong Nanshan

Back on April 6, South Africa's News24.com reported that "Zhong Nanshan, touted as China's first health expert to identify the new disease, said Guangdong province's Center for Disease Control and Prevention recently completed a study of 30 animal types and found the virus in snakes, wild pigs, monkeys and bats."

On June 4th, the Xinhua News Agency reported that "Although there is no direct evidence that the SARS virus originated in wildlife, such as the civet cat or the wild boar, Zhong considers that it is probably the case."

How we got from "found the virus" to "no direct evidence" is somewhat of a mystery, perhaps political in nature. The truth has a way of doing sommersaults and backflips in China. Especially about SARS. We heard from one scientist today that even genetic sequences of the SARS coronavirus have a way of suddenly changing in China.

Zhong Nanshan would make a great interview subject for some enterprising mainstream journalist who can get through to him. Is the SARS coronavirus in wild pigs or not? The future health of the world may be riding on the answer to that question.

SARS: THE NIGHTMARE SCENARIO

In something like 100 days, SARS could break out in a devastating manner because the animal reservoir for the virus has still not been determined and that reservoir might not be as limited and exotic as some people think. If the finding that suggests that wild pigs are SARS carriers is accurate, and if the death of some domestic pigs in China's Guangdong Province was from that virus, then the epidemic that occurs when the seasons change could be mind-boggling.

If the SARS-associated coronavirus is now spreading throughout the pig population all over China, the next epidemic will overwhelm that country's public health system. And if it is in pigs, they will be faced with the problem of controlling the disease in pigs which may mean trying to kill all of the infected pigs in China, and that would cause all kinds of disruption. We can expect international panic. We can also expect a major epidemic in North America and if that happens, our pigs could turn into the next reservoir for SARS. This scenario is utterly within the realm of possiblity and should be taken seriously by national security types because it could cause a breakdown of economies across the globe.

Right now it appears that most scientific authorities are just praying that this won't happen.

Some of the negligent villains in this nightmare scenario would turn out to be all the pig researchers who know about the porcine coronavirus problem all over the world. The pork industry and its research puppets should be on the front lines of SARS research, and instead what we are hearing is total silence and what we are seeing is total inaction.

Here's a question for economists and investors. What will the stock market look like in November and December if people are walking around New York and all the other major cities in the world in medical masks? If that happens, you can thank the pork industry and its researchers for their proactive response to SARS.

AUSTRALIAN RESEARCHER IS SEARCHING
FOR SARS RESERVOIRS IN CHINA.

What follows is a media release from CSIRO, a scientific organization in Australia.


A senior CSIRO veterinarian begins a three-week visit to China on Friday to help coordinate an international investigation into the roles animals might play in spreading the deadly SARS virus.

One of CSIRO Livestock Industries' leading viral disease experts - Dr Laurie Gleeson from the Australian Animal Health Laboratory in Geelong - will visit several Chinese provinces while on secondment to the UN's Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO).

His role will be to provide a focal point in communication between Chinese authorities, the FAO, the World Health Organisation and international researchers.

"FAO has taken the lead in providing this international collaboration with the Ministry of Agriculture (MOA) in China. My role is to assist the government of China to develop their program to investigate animal-related aspects of the SARS epidemic," Dr Gleeson says.

"During the mission we will collate information on research to date and identify areas that require further research. We will also explore where international collaboration will assist China to quickly resolve some key issues, such as the need for diagnostic tests for animals," he says.

Since it was identified in Late February 2003, the SARS virus has infected more than 8,000 people world-wide, killed over 800 and continues to have a major impact on the global economy. The atypical pneumonia is believed to be caused by a newly identified type of coronavirus.

Dr Gleeson says a very similar virus has been isolated from civets and racoon dogs obtained from Chinese wildlife markets. However it is not clear if these animals are the 'natural host' of the virus.

"Antibodies to the SARS virus are not widespread in the human population, strongly suggesting that the virus is new to humans and that it has jumped from an animal species," he says.

"We need to know the natural host of the virus and understand if other animal species may become infected and able to transmit it so we can be prepared to prevent epidemics of SARS arising in the future," he says.

THE NEXT SARS EPIDEMIC

Maybe you ain't seen nothing yet

By Charles Ortleb

While the media is celebrating what seems to be the disappearance of SARS from the face of the earth, there is a dark undercurrent to some of the news stories and there are some rather unpleasant facts that still have not been faced head-on.

There is still the matter of the animal reservoir. Nobody is giving a straight answer on this issue. Are civet cats the primary source or just the first place researchers looked? What about reports that pigs, snakes and bats also test positive? Is pork in China infected with the SARS-associated coronavirus? How about Canada. Are Canadian hams free of SARS? Has anyone bothered to check?

Pigs are of special concern because coronaviruses go back and forth easily between people and pigs. And because there are millions of pigs in China and people there live in close proximity. If SARS is seasonal the animal reservoir in October or November could be exponentially larger than the reservoir for the first SARS outbreak. The next SARS epidemic could involve millions of people if the virus is now spreading among the pigs in China. If that happens, there will be an international panic like we have never seen.

And if pigs are infected what will authorities do? Kill every infected pig? That's what they've had to do for some other zoonotic epidemics from pigs--Nipah virus, for one.

The scariest thing about the possibility of pigs being involved is that the pork industry will do everything it can to keep a lid on it. And it will have great support from pig researchers who seem to be more concerned about the industry than the health of people.

The media is missing a big one here. Laurie Garrett has done some decent writing on SARS, but she's dropped the ball where pigs are concerned. When she talks about animals and SARS the word "pig" does not cross her lips. Very peculiar. Pigs are the SARS reservoir that dare not speak its name.

There could be one benefit for the world if pigs are the source of SARS. Everyone will want to know more about the health of pigs and people are bound to find out that pigs have AIDS all over the world. It's called "PRRS" and if you don't know what that is, go directly to Google, type in "PRRS and pigs" and don't pass go.

Charles Ortleb is the author of The Closing Argument and the co-author of The Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Follies.

AN OPEN LETTER TO THE DOCTORS AND NURSES IN TORONTO

Dear Doctors and Nurses of Toronto,

You have just been through Hell.

I've been following your story since the begining of the SARS epidemic.

Some of you have seen friends and colleagues suffer. Some of you have seen patients die. Some of you have been had the illness and recovered. Some of you have gotten the illness and feel like you will never be back to normal. Some of you fear that your illness will relapse and you'll have to go through it all again. All of you have been traumatized and your work conditions have been trying, to say the least. Many of you do not feel adequately compensated for what you have been through.

None of you want to see this happen again. Many of you must be on edge about statements that SARS could be seasonal and that come this autumn or winter, you might all have to go through a similar or worse crisis. You worry about your families and you worry about your future in the medical field. Is it possible you could end up spending the rest of your lives working in space suits to protect yourself from a SARS infection?

Most of you assume that the best minds in the medical field are working hard to understand SARS and that nobody is playing games or putting any financial agenda ahead of the goal of ending SARS as a health threat.

Since the beginning of the SARS epidemic I have been suggesting that pigs should be looked at closely as the possible source of SARS. For over a decade I have been writing about the respiratory diseases in pigs and when I first heard that SARS had broken out in a part of China which has a lot of sick pigs, I began writing about a possible link betwen SARS and a wide array of respiratory pathogens in pigs which include porcine coronavirus.

The World Health Organization has frequently spoken out about the need to identify the animal reservoir from which SARS sprang. Supposedly, the first animals found with SARS-associated coronavirus were civet cats which are sold in exotic animal markets in Guangdong Province in China. Unfortunately, because the virus was first found in civet cats, it was assumed that they must be the primary and only source of the SARS-associated coronavirus. To this very day, publications as prestigious as the Washington Post keep oversimplifying the matter by talking about civet cats as the source of SARS.

The problem is that since the civet cat research, the SARS-associated coronavirus has been found in snakes, bats, and perhaps most importantly, wild pigs. Finding the virus in pigs is most disturbing because 30% of the original cases in Guangdong Province were in foodhandlers. It seems reasonable to hypothesize that such a high a percentage suggests that the foodhandlers were handling pork or chicken rather than civet cats.

A very revealing story about the possible SARS connection to pigs appeared in the Baltimore Sun on May 14th. Gady A. Epstein, of the Baltimore Sun Foreign Staff, wrote a fascinating story about a farmer in the Chinese area where SARS is thought to have originated. Epstein found a farm where what sounds like SARS-like epidemic in pigs may have occurred. Epstein interviewed a woman named Zheng Haocai who lives with her husband on a farm south of Guangzhou. Her shack of a farmhouse is "cobbled together out of aluminum, lumber, tarpaper and plastic sheeting." According to Epstein, "Zheng is unable to afford feed for her pigs, so they eat factory and restaurant garbage, served out of blue plastic barrels of unidentifiable dark sludge that she buys for $2.50 a barrel."

In what could turn out to be the most important reporting on SARS to date, Epstein writes that "at feeding time, her chickens join the feast, pecking near the porkers and, in the end stall, among a handful of pigs set apart from the others. This small group, Zheng said, had recovered from a strange virus that struck dozens of her pigs with flu and diarrhea a few months ago." And Epstein reports that the woman said, "This year we've had a lot of pigs get sick, and even when I give them medicine, they don't get better."

Epstein also reported that "a few feet from the pen lies an open box filled with empty syringes, used medicine bottles and torn packets of fever remedies that Zheng used with little success. Out of a group of 80 pigs she bought this year, she said, half died." Epstein reported that the woman said, "They got fever and didn't want to eat."

Every doctor and nurse in Toronto and the rest of the world has an investment in knowing whether the pigs in Guangdong Province are infected with the SARS-associated coronavirus. There is no indication that the CDC or the World Health Organization is in any hurry to thoroughly investigate the matter.

According to the High Plains Journal, a study was conducted by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency into whether young pigs in Canada could transmit the virus. The study is shoddy to say the least. According to the study, there was some replication by the SARS-associated coronavirus but the pigs didn't get sick and didn't seem to spread the virus. Some replication? Despite it's claims that pigs are not involved, the study doesn't prove that pigs of a wide variety of ages and health conditions in China aren't carriers of the SARS-associated coronavirus. If anything, the fact that pigs can be transiently infected seems to call for more research, not stonewalling.

One thing that caught my eye early in my own SARS investigation was a study of pigs done in Japan. The research on several hundred pigs in Japan suggested that coronaviruses move back and forth with great ease between people and pigs. If the SARS-associated coronavirus is endemic in Chinese pigs, and it moves back and forth with great ease, we can expect a far worse SARS epidemic when the weather changes. For all we know, the SARS-associated coronavirus could be spreading without visible signs of mortality throughout all the pig herds in China. Now that China seems to be returning to its old program of news censorship, there's no telling what is going on in the pigs in China. China has covered up past epidemics in its pigs.

The most important point I want in this letter is that the leading pig researchers who should be out there warning about the possibility that pigs will be a huge reservoir for the SARS-associated coronavirus, are by and large so much in bed with the pork industry that they dare not make an independent peep. They live in fear of the industry that finances them. A SARS connection to pigs would create an unprecedented international problem with almost apolcalyptic financial implications.

The pig researchers I spoke with early on in the SARS epidemic almost universally hostile to any discussion of pigs as a source of SARS. If the medical community in Totonto wants to find out the truth about pigs and SARS, it may have to finance research independent of the pig research estalishment.

It is laughable that some in the pig research community have talked about their ability to help research the SARS epidemic with their knowledge of coronaviruses, but have refused to discuss pigs as a possible or probable source of the SARS epidemic.

The truth about the health of pigs in every province in China matters a great deal to you, the nurses and doctors of Toronto. To avoid another hellish round of SARS, I hope you will join me in demanding that the connection between SARS and pigs be investigated with integrity and diligence. Millions of lives may depend on this politically sensitive research.

Charles Ortleb
rubiconmedia@yahoo.com

ONCE AGAIN, THE TIMES SKIRTS
THE PIG QUESTION

In today's New York Times, Lawrence Altman once again carefully avoids talking about pigs, the most obvious probable source of the SARS-associated coronavirus. With Keith Bradsheer, the former CDC employee reports that "Another concern is that researchers in Hong Kong and Guangdong say they have found viruses nearly identical to the SARS virus in several species of wild animals sold for meat in local marketplaces. Nobody knows whether those animals long harbored the disease or happened to catch it in a market stall from some other animal. Nor does anybody know whether the disease passed once from animals to humans in a fluke incident or was transmitted in a manner easily repeated. All of these factors will affect the likelihood of recurrent outbreaks."

Well, if nobody knows the SARS serostatus of all the edible wild animals in China, we do hope that somebody will try and find out one of these months. And we know that China can be trusted provide an honest answer to this question.

Meanwhile, if the thought of eating ham from a pig with AIDS doesn't appeal to you, we suggest you read about the PRRS epidemic in pigs in Canada and the USA. Next time you eat bacon, you may want to fry it in protease inhibitors and a strong antibiotic.

HOW MANY PIGS IN CHINA AND
CANADA ARE CARRIERS OF THE
SARS-ASSOCIATED CORONAVIRUS?

Nobody seems to want to talk about pigs and SARS. And what about the dead pigs in China's Guangdong Province?

While the World Health Organization continues to warn that as long as there are animal reservoirs for the SARS-associated coronavirus (SAC), SARS will still be a problem. It's amazing that the discovery of the virus in wild pigs hasn't raised the alarm that pigs could be the fastest way the virus could spread throughout the human population. It seems that from a statistical point of view, it is more likely that the 30% of the first SARS cases in China who were food handlers were more likely to be handling pork than barbecued civet cat. The mainstream media likes the civet cat story and is sticking with it.

More than likely the problem is that nobody wants to go there. SARS in pigs implies an epidemic that would be virtually impossible to control and one that would create economic pandemonium. It is just as unthinkable as the idea that Chronic Fatigue Syndrome is actually AIDS which just couldn't be true.

Several weeks ago, before the Chinese researchers announced the had found SAC in wild pigs, the World Health Organization made a comforting statement that pigs couldn't be infected. That was based on a Canadian study which we finally located. Resource News International via COMTEX reported on May 14 that "Early results indicate that pigs and chickens are not showing symptoms of severe acute respiratory syndrome after being injected with the disease, said science researcher Hana Weingartl of the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA)."

The report noted that "tests to find the effects of SARS on livestock have been performed on 5-week-old pigs and 6-week-old chickens. The experiments were requested by the Paris-based International Organization for Animal Health, after speculation that SARS was being spread from pigs and chickens."

The study seems to have been aimed at determining if the animals got sick from SAC, not if they could be healthy reservoirs of the virus. If this really is what they did, and if this the study that WHO based its pronouncement on, then the kindest thing we can say is that the World Health Organization's SARS research effort is in the hand of morons.

We're still waiting for someone to test the sick pigs in China's Guangdong Province.

IT'S OFFICIAL: THE TIMES ACKNOWLEDGES
THAT THE SARS-ASSOCIATED CORONAVIRUS
HAS BEEN FOUND IN WILD PIGS

The media is taking its time on the SARS-in-pigs story. We're shocked, shocked! Knowing how the pork industry and its research pimps operate, we're lucky that there is any story at all.

But finally in the New York Times, Lawrence Altman (MD and president of the CDC fan club) broke the porcine silence, Altman writes: "Yet another area of uncertainty [about SARS], the health agency said, concerns an unconfirmed news report that scientists in China have found the SARS virus in a wider variety of animals than previously reported. The new species include snakes, wild pigs, bats and monkeys, though not household pets, according to statements made at an Asian scientific meeting in Beijing last week."

Altman continues, "In May, scientists reported finding the virus in masked palm civets and raccoon dogs, and evidence of infection among badgers in a wildlife market in Shenzen, in southern China. The W.H.O. has received information about the Shenzen findings but little about the newer findings despite telephone calls to Chinese scientists, said a frustrated Dr. Klaus Stohr, who directs the scientific investigation of SARS for the Geneva-based agency."

Alman reports that Dr. Stohr told him, "If this virus is present in so many species, it would be a big surprise biologically." Stohr also told Altman that confirmation of the findings would make "control of SARS much more difficult, without doubt, because there would be so many sources."

We first suggested that pigs were a possible and probable source of SARS on March 27. A couple of pig researchers violently disagreed with us which is not surprising since most research into pig diseases is either directly or indirectly funded by the pork industry.

We're still waiting for more details on that amazing pig experiment done weeks ago under the auspices of WHO -- you know, the one that shows that pigs can't become infected with the SARS-associated coronavirus. Who conducted that research, the mayor of Toronto?

The big question still is whether animals like pigs will become the reservoir for a much worse epidemic as time goes on. If pigs are involved, the pork industry will do it's best to circle the wagons and protect the industry. We still haven't seen a mention of the SARS-in-pigs story at The Pig Site which tries to keep up on every new story about pigs. Well, almost every story.

We were amused weeks ago when we saw that the pig research establishment seemed to be patting itself on the back about how swine science would be helpful in understanding how to control the SARS epidemic, carefully avoiding discussions of research that shows that coronaviruses go back and forth between pigs and people with the greatest of ease. There was a collective sigh of relief when it looked like civet cats are the source of SARS. Nobody seemed to want to focus on the wild boars that are also sold in the famous wild animal gourmet markets in China.

Stay tuned.

WILD PIGS IN CHINA TEST POSITIVE FOR
THE SARS CORONAVIRUS
Most of the media seems to be ignoring an
important new fact about SARS

According to the South Africa's News24.com, wild pigs in China have tested positive for the SARS-associated coronavirus, which should raise serious questions about the possibility of SARS entering the food supply in China, Canada, and other places where there are major SARS epidemics. Certainly no pork or live pigs should be brought into the United States from Canada until this matter is fully investigated.

According to the report, "Zhong Nanshan, touted as China's first health expert to identify the new disease, said Guangdong province's Center for Disease Control and Prevention recently completed a study of 30 animal types and found the virus in snakes, wild pigs, monkeys and bats." Accoding to the report, Zhong said, "It's in a lot of animals, but as far as whether this disease is transmitted from animals to humans, we still don't know." The report also notes that "he said the animals tested were taken from wildlife markets in the province in southern China, where the disease is believed to have originated." It is now known that 30% of the original SARS cases in China were foodhandlers. Whether they were handling pork from infected wild pigs remains to be seen.

This report will devastate some pig researchers who have arrogantly insisted that SARS has nothing to do with pigs. If domestic pigs turn out to also be a reservoir of the SARS-associated coronavirus, SARS could become one of the most nightmarish pandemics of all time.

WOULD CHINA COVER UP A
SARS EPIDEMIC IN PIGS?
If PRRS is any indication, the unfortunate
answer is yes.

China seems to be circling the wagons again. Recent reports indicate that it's back to politics as usual regarding SARS, and most information coming out about the epidemic is less than trustworthy. Not that America is necessarily telling the truth about it's own SARS epidemic. (See the Vallejo story below.)

The Baltimore Sun story from the pig farm in Guangzhou still makes us wonder if the possibility that pigs are the reservoir of SARS is so disturbing that nobody wants to go there. Did the pigs on that farm have the SARS coronavirus or not? China covered up the epidemic of PRRS in pigs for many years. They know the drill.

Menwhile, the attempt to blame civet cats for the epidemic may have encountered a setback when Nature published research on 8 civet cats in China that were negative for the virus. And it is puzzling that not all of the animals in the exotic animal market in Guangdong were tested for the SARS-associated coronavirus. It's amazing how the media has latched onto the civet cat story and now it has become the conventinal wisdom that civet cats are the source of SARS. The sloppiness of the reporting on this matter indicates that the media is still in a kind of denial about how serious SARS is. All you have to do is read some of the accounts of what it is like to have SARS and then consider the possibility that asymptomatic
SARS carriers are spreading the disease and then factor in the possibility that the disease is seasonal as well as the possibility that those who are infected remain infected, and you have a scenario you'd rather not think about. Which is what much of the media seems to be doing.

One wonders if the the top SARS researchers at the CDC and WHO are aware of the sick pig situation in Guangdong. If they're, they are surrounded by incompetent idiots. If they do and they haven't tested pigs throughout the Guangdong Province, then the leaders are worse than idiots. Actually, if the CDC and WHO screw up SARS, the whole world might take people who say they also got AIDS and CFIDS wrong much more seriously. And that would be a good thing.

HOW MUCH PORK DO THE
CHINESE CONSUME?

The following public testimony was given to Congress by an official from the National Pork Producers Council in 1999. It clearly shows how important pork is to the Chinese diet and economy.

Testimony of Nicholas D. Giordano On Behalf of the National Pork Producers Council
Before The U.S. House Int'l Relations Committee Subcommittee on Asia and the Pacific On The Embatled State of U.S. - China Relations: Assessing the Zhu Rongji Visit April 21, 1999

Mr. Chairman and Members of the Subcommittee:

I am Nicholas D. Giordano, International Trade Counsel for the National Pork Producers Council. I very much appreciate the opportunity to appear here on behalf of U.S. pork producers to express our views on the recent visit of Chinese Premier Zhu Rongji to the United States and the trade implications for America's pork producers.

The National Pork Producers Council is a national association representing 44 affiliated states that annually generate approximately $11 billion in farm gate sales (although farm gate sales were reduced to about $9 billion in 1998 as a result of the lowest hog prices ever in real terms). According to a recent Iowa State study conducted by Otto and Lawrence, the U.S. pork industry supports an estimated 600,000 domestic jobs and generates more than $64 billion annually in total economic activity. With 10,988,850 litters being fed out annually, U.S. pork producers consume 1.065 billion bushels of corn valued at $2.558 billion. Feed supplements and additives represent another $2.522 billion of purchased inputs from U.S. suppliers which help support U.S. soybean prices, the U.S. soybean processing industry, local elevators and transportation services based in rural areas.

U.S. Agriculture Benefits From Expanded Trade

International trade is vital to the future of American agriculture. As the world's biggest exporter of agricultural products we have a critical interest in the development and maintenance of strong and effective rules for international trade. This is especially true for pork, the world's meat of choice, which represents 44 percent of daily meat protein intake in the world. Notwithstanding the huge global market for pork and pork products, efficient U.S. producers were precluded from exporting significant volumes of pork in the pre-Uruguay Round Agreement, pre-NAFTA era. A combination of foreign market trade barriers and highly subsidized competitors kept a lid on U.S. pork exports.

The Uruguay Round succeeded in establishing a more effective set of trade rules for the agricultural sector and began the process of reducing trade-distorting subsidies and import barriers. Since 1995, when the Uruguay Round Agreement went into effect, U.S. pork exports to the world have increased by approximately 86 percent in volume terms and 80 percent in value terms from 1994 levels. According to a study by CF Industries, exports were so important to the industry in 1997 (when hog prices were at normal levels) that cessation of exports (due for example to an embargo or animal disease outbreak) would have caused cash hog prices to plummet by $15.73 per head.

While our recent export performance is impressive, it nevertheless remains severely limited by factors such as the lack of access to many of the world's pork markets, including China, which is the largest pork consuming market in the world.

Pork Producers Strongly Support China's Accession to the WTO

The market access concessions made by China during the recent visit of Chinese Premier Zhu Rongji to the United States are sensational news for U.S. pork producers. We commend Ambassador Barshefsky, Ambassador Scher, Secretary Glickman, and their hard-working staffs. We also thank you Mr. Chairman for your all your help and leadership on this matter. Pork producers also very much appreciate the efforts of other members of this subcommittee. Together, you have hit a grand slam home run giving U.S. pork producers access to the largest pork consuming market in the world.

Mr. Chairman, as you and other members of this subcommittee know, U.S. pork producers are suffering from very low prices. Indeed, our industry just came through a period with the lowest hog prices ever in real terms. For us, and for most other sectors of U.S. agriculture, which also are suffering from very low prices, the importance of consummating this deal with China and getting China quickly into the WTO cannot be overstated. As co-chair of the 80 organization Agriculture Trade Coalition, the National Pork Producers Counsel will leave no stone unturned in our quest to get China into the WTO and to get permanent Normal Trade Relations extended to China.

We do not deny that there are problems in the U.S. - China relationship. However, we do not see how walking away from these fantastic market access concessions negotiated with China would promote U.S. interests. As we see it, this is a one-way trade agreement; the U.S. benefits significantly because China's previously closed market now opens to U.S. exports while China simply maintains the access to the U.S. market that it has had for almost 20 years. U.S. farmers, ranchers, workers, and business will benefit and our trade deficit with China will be reduced.

China's Market Access Concessions on Pork

Previously, China blocked U.S. pork imports through a system of high tariffs, restrictive import licensing and distribution practices, and complicated and arbitrary sanitary requirements.

Under the terms of the recent negotiations, China will accept pork from any Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) approved packing plant, phase out its restrictive import and distribution procedures, and lower tariffs.

Tariffs on frozen pork variety meats (such as stomachs, intestines, and hearts --the predominant product currently demanded by Chinese importers) and frozen pork muscle meats, will be phased down to 12 percent. Tariffs on frozen pork carcasses and fresh and processed pork products will be set at 20 percent. Tariffs will be lowered from 20 percent to 12 percent in equal increments on the frozen products over a four-year period from the time China becomes a WTO member. Previously, in the course of negotiations with the U.S., China had agreed to lower all pork tariffs to 20 percent from rates as high as 43 percent.

China is a Vast Pork Consuming Market

In China, pork is by far the predominant source of meat protein consumed. China consumes more pork per capita than the amount consumed per capita in the United States making it a vast pork consuming market. Indeed, China consumes approximately 50 percent of the total pork annually consumed in the world and most industry analysts project pork demand in China to increase by 6 to 7 percent per year in the early part of the next century. One group of very respected agricultural economists forecast that Chinese pork consumption will increase by approximately 8 million metric tons within the next ten years. To put this number in perspective, in 1998, U.S. pork exports were 529,000 metric tons. Thus, China is not a potential market; it is a huge and growing pork consumption market.

While China is the world's largest producer of pork, 85 percent of its pork comes from backyard producers. As incomes continue to rise and consumers demand higher quality pork and more of it, as well as more beef, poultry, dairy and alcohol products, commercial production of pork in China will become increasingly costly. This is because China must achieve this growth in consumption with only 9 percent of the world's arable land. According to FAO data, China must feed 13.0 people for each hectare of arable land, whereas Europe must feed 4.1 people, and the United States must feed only 1.4 people.

China is moving from having mid-western U.S. type corn prices to having Taiwanese and Japanese type corn prices. An important choice must be made, China must either import feed grains or livestock products to achieve consumer diets similar to those of the developed world. China is making the right choice in opening its market to meat imports. Meat should be produced in grain surplus countries not in grain deficit countries. Countries that import feed grains must pay a premium over world market prices and feed grains constitute over 60 percent of the cost of raising hogs. Pork producers in Japan and Taiwan pay approximately double the amount paid for feed by a Nebraska pork producer. Thus, China apparently wants to avoid the mistakes made by Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan.

The cost of producing pork in China currently is higher than the cost of producing pork in the United States. By virtue of the subsidies provided to its pork industry, China has been able to suppress the demand for imported pork smuggled into the country and maintain its ability to export pork. If China were to continue to block pork imports and, instead tried to keep pace with expanding domestic demand through domestic production, Chinese pork prices would be much higher than would otherwise be the case. Further, Chinese subsidies and investment in agriculture would keep capital from flowing to more efficient and remunerative uses. The costs of this misallocation would increase over time as China tried to extract more and more pork from a limited source of supply. In time, China, like Japan and Korea, would be forced to import pork to reduce prices.

China's Ban on Pork Imports Remains in Effect

High tariff rates and a discriminatory value added tax put imported pork at a sharp competitive disadvantage to domestic pork. Moreover, complicated and non-transparent restrictions on imported pork, administered by China's State Administration of Inspection and Quarantine (SAIQ) - which recently replaced it's quarantine administration CAPQ - make it virtually impossible to import pork. SAIQ contends that Chinese restaurants and hotels can obtain licenses to import pork. Unlike beef, for which licenses are available through regional SAIQ offices, SAIQ says that it disseminates pork import licenses solely through SAIQ headquarters. In reality, very few licenses have been granted by SAIQ to hotel and restaurant importers.

In 1997, SAIQ provided quotas to 11 establishments in Australia, Canada, and the United States as eligible to export meat and poultry to China for general consumption under a one year "pilot program." While in one sense this was a positive development because, as a matter of law, these imports are not limited to the hotel and restaurant sector, as a matter of fact, high tariffs and other restrictive measures kept a tight lid on imports.

Under the pilot program, the qualified establishments include a pork facility in Australia that received a quota of 2,000 MT, three pork facilities in Canada that received a total quota of 68,000 MT, and one pork facility in the U.S. that received a quota of 5,500 MT. The Australian and U.S. exports must be imported exclusively by Nanjing Five-Star Hotel Corporation Ltd. and the Canadian product must be imported exclusively by Chaoying Foodstuff Ltd. While pork is not on the formal list of state traded products in China, the appointment of these exclusive importers is troubling. Indeed, the U.S. pork industry understands that SAIQ officials are involved with the ownership/management of each of these importers. The pilot program has been a failure due to high duties and taxes, unfair sanitary barriers, restrictions on the number of importers, and competition from smuggled pork imports.

Canadian pork quotas are much higher than U.S. quota levels under the pilot program but Canadian pork must be imported pursuant to the Canada-China pork protocol. Canadian industry officials are extremely upset with this protocol because onerous and non-scientific restrictions will preclude the shipment of any significant amount of pork from Canada to China. The Chinese, supposedly at the behest of the Australians, expressed concern to the Canadians about Porcine Reproductive and Respiratory Syndrome (PRRS). The PRRS virus is endemic to the world and it defies credulity to suggest that China - a country where serious porcine diseases are rampant - does not have PRRS. Further, unlike porcine diseases such as hog cholera and FMD, PRRS is not transmitted through imported meat to domestic swine

Despite official import restrictions, demand from the population for pork, particularly high-quality variety meats (e.g. hearts, stomachs, intestines), is so high that sizeable quantities of imported pork are being smuggled into China principally through Hong Kong. The pork is distributed to the general population mostly through local wholesale markets with a small amount distributed through supermarkets. Technically the importation and distribution of this product is illegal, a fact which is generally acknowledged by the Hong Kong importers and Chinese distributors. In 1998, this trade represented approximately $50 million for US exporters, although the total value of the pork trade with China conducted through Hong Kong is estimated to be as high as US $200 million. (An additional $8 million of U.S. pork was imported directly by China in 1998. Industry sources in China report that even these imports that directly enter China do so on a negotiated basis, not in accord with the official position.) It is difficult and expensive to smuggle pork into China and, without question, pork imports would explode if China lifted its de facto ban. Even under restrictive trade regulations, Chinese demand is so large at times that they have bought the entire world's supply of certain pork variety meats.

Conclusion

The U.S. government has convinced China to lift its de facto ban on imported pork as a condition of entry to the World Trade Organization. In order to become a consistent and reliable supplier of pork, NPPC respectfully urges the Congress to work closely with the Administration to complete the WTO package and extend permanent NTR to China.

The United States is uniquely positioned to reap the benefits of a liberalized Chinese pork sector. The U.S. exported over $1.1 billion in pork in 1998 and exports grew by over 15% in spite of the global financial crisis.

China is surpassing Japan as the single largest source of the U.S. trade deficit. If China liberalized its pork market, the U.S. would be exporting huge volumes of pork to that country. The U.S. pork industry alone could make a significant dent in the U.S.- China trade imbalance.

THE WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION
IS STILL NOT RULING OUT PIGS
AS THE SOURCE OF SARS

By Charles Ortleb

Despite a recent announcement that scientists in Canada had shown that chickens and pigs could not become infected, a virologist with the World Health Organization said today that the organization had still not ruled out chickens and pigs as a possible source of SARS. According to an Australian Broadcasting Corporation story, WHO virologist Mark Salter said that "there was still 'some significant concern as to where the disease originated'. He also told ABC that "animals were being investigated as one possible source in China." The story quotes Salter as saying that scientists "are looking at pigs and chickens and various forms of fowl."

From a treatment point of view, it might be good news if SARS is a pig disease because of some recent progress made in treating coronaviruses in pigs. On May 19, Businesswire reported that Hemispherx Biopharma, Inc. revealed "the results of a "double-blinded" independent study conducted in a pig population suffering from the pig coronavirus, after therapeutic intervention with one of the company's lead Products, Alferon N. Newborn piglets, treated with Alferon N, even in low doses, had significantly greater survival rates than placebo-treated, control, piglets."

A story we reported on days ago in this column continues to haunt us and certainly merits an immediate investigation. We ran this item on May 14:

Where the pig-SARS connection is concerned, the real smoking gun may have appeared in an anecdote in a story published yesterday. Gady A. Epstein, of the Baltimore Sun Foreign Staff, wrote a fascinating story about a farmer in the Chinese area where SARS is thought to have originated. Epstein found a farm where what sounds like SARS-like epidemic in pigs may have occurred. Epstein interviewed a woman named Zheng Haocai who lives with her husband on a farm south of Guangzhou. Her shack of a farmhouse is "cobbled together out of aluminum, lumber, tarpaper and plastic sheeting." According to Epstein, "Zheng is unable to afford feed for her pigs, so they eat factory and restaurant garbage, served out of blue plastic barrels of unidentifiable dark sludge that she buys for $2.50 a barrel."

In what could turn out to be the most important reporting on SARS to date, Epstein writes that "at feeding time, her chickens join the feast, pecking near the porkers and, in the end stall, among a handful of pigs set apart from the others. This small group, Zheng said, had recovered from a strange virus that struck dozens of her pigs with flu and diarrhea a few months ago." And Epstein reports that the woman said, "This year we've had a lot of pigs get sick, and even when I give them medicine, they don't get better."

Epstein also reported that "a few feet from the pen lies an open box filled with empty syringes, used medicine bottles and torn packets of fever remedies that Zheng used with little success. Out of a group of 80 pigs she bought this year, she said, half died." Epstein reported that the woman said, "They got fever and didn't want to eat."

Hopefully, somebody at the CDC and WHO will read Epstein's story.

IS SARS BEING COVERED UP
AT A CALIFORNIA HOSPITAL?

A story in the Sierra Times by Carl F. Worden suggests that something bizarre is going on at a hospital in Vallejo, California. According to Worden's story, "While the evidence is not conclusive, information pouring in gives all indications of some type of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) outbreak has manifested itself in the Kaiser Hospital of Vallejo, California."

Worden's source was Astraea Kelly, a woman who works in the pulmonary unit at Kaiser Hospital in Vallejo. She has been sick since May 5 and she told Worden that "her symptoms began with 3 days of diarrhea, a temperature running between 100 to 101 degrees, heaviness in the chest, wheezing, and she almost had to undergo oxygen therapy." Worden also reported that, "she's still recovering two weeks later. What troubled her was the fact that so many patients in her unit presented the exact same pattern of symptoms. According to Astraea, 20 patients died in a period of one month, including those 12 who died in that period of just 4 days, and all from the same pattern of illness." A number of her co-workers also seem to have contracted the illness.

According to the story, Kelly has been accused by her hospital of using her e-mail for "inappropriare purposes" after she started communicating with her colleagues about the outbreak.

It has amazed many people that there has been no serious outbreak of SARS in America and no fatalities from the syndrome. If Kelly's assessment is accurate, the news has been too good to be true and the CDC has some troubling questions to answer.

CANADIAN RESEARCHERS SAY THEIR
RESEARCH RULES OUT CHICKEN AND PIGS
AS SARS RESERVOIRS.
BUT IS THEIR WORK RELIABLE?

In Today's Washington Post, Rob Stein reports on some conclusions by Canadian researchers about their ability to infect chickens and pigs with the SARS-related coronavirus. According to Stein, "In yet another finding, scientists in Canada said a series of experiments has shown that pigs and chickens cannot be infected with the SARS virus. That indicates the animals were probably not the original source of the virus and would not provide a "reservoir" in which the virus could hide and reemerge if public health measures succeed in stamping out the epidemic in humans . . .Chickens and pigs were considered the most likely animals to play a role in the epidemic. Both species can be infected by related viruses, and people live in close proximity to both species in southern China, where the epidemic began."

A World Health Organization SARS researcher, Dr. Kaus Stohr, told Epstein "We were all speculating about animal reservoirs. These tests show that these animals, pigs and chickens, do not appear to play a role in any stage of the evolution of this virus. The virus does not like them. That makes them a very inefficient host for the virus."

Until we see the published research (if it is ever published) there is no way to judge the quality of the research. It would be tragic if Chinese researchers didn't at least look for the SARS-relarted coronavirus in pigs in the SARS-affected areas of China. We'd love to know what porcine cell lines the Canadian researchers tried to grow the SARS-related coronavirus in. Did they try and infect live pigs? If they didn't do all of the above, we still don't know if pigs can be ruled out in this epidemic. No role in any stage of the evolution of the SARS-related coronavirus? That's awfully strong. Stay tuned.

P.S. What is an "inefficient host"? Is that a host that is just a little bit pregnant? Why didn't Stohr just say chickens and pigs are not hosts for this virus, period?

WHERE DID SARS COME FROM?
PIGS INCREASINGLY LOOK LIKE
THE PRIME SUSPECTS

On May 1, Science published the genome analysis of the SARS-associated coronavirus. The abstract noted a moderate similarity to a human coronavirus labeled "HCoV-OC43." That corononavirus has an interesting track record."HCoV-OC43" is the coronavirus that Japanese researchers found in pigs in a study that indicated that coronaviruses pass back and forth promiscuously between people and pigs. This certainly increased the possibility that the SARS coronavirus is circulating in pigs in China and also the possibility that it could move from people to pigs in countries where only the people are infected. The fact that we don't have conclusive evidence on this matter is very odd, and the reason for that is probably very political. Until someone does some trustworthy research, it is not out of the realm of possibility that SARS is in the food supply in China, given the early high incidence of SARS in foodhandlers there. There still is a great deal of confusion about how SARS is being transmitted there and in Taiwan, which also has a high pig population and a great deal of pork consumption.

On May 13, Maggie Fox of Reuters reported on a possible German SARS breakthrough that again brought pigs into the picture. According to Fox, researchers in Germany said that "they had found a weakness in the SARS virus and that a drug being tested against the common cold could be modified to battle the deadly illness."

The weakness involved a protease (an enzyme necessary for viral replication) that resembles the protease on a pathological coronavirus that infects pigs. The finding seems to only increase the probability that the SARS-related coronavirus can infect pigs.

Where the pig-SARS connection is concerned, the real smoking gun may have appeared in an anecdote in a story published yesterday. Gady A. Epstein, of the Baltimore Sun Foreign Staff, wrote a fascinating story about a farmer in the Chinese area where SARS is thought to have originated. Epstein found a farm where what sounds like SARS-like epidemic in pigs may have occurred. Epstein interviewed a woman named Zheng Haocai who lives with her husband on a farm south of Guangzhou. Her shack of a farmhouse is "cobbled together out of aluminum, lumber, tarpaper and plastic sheeting." According to Epstein, "Zheng is unable to afford feed for her pigs, so they eat factory and restaurant garbage, served out of blue plastic barrels of unidentifiable dark sludge that she buys for $2.50 a barrel."

In what could turn out to be the most important reporting on SARS to date, Epstein writes that "at feeding time, her chickens join the feast, pecking near the porkers and, in the end stall, among a handful of pigs set apart from the others. This small group, Zheng said, had recovered from a strange virus that struck dozens of her pigs with flu and diarrhea a few months ago." And Epstein reports that the woman said, "This year we've had a lot of pigs get sick, and even when I give them medicine, they don't get better."

Epstein also reported that "a few feet from the pen lies an open box filled with empty syringes, used medicine bottles and torn packets of fever remedies that Zheng used with little success. Out of a group of 80 pigs she bought this year, she said, half died." Epstein reported that the woman said, "They got fever and didn't want to eat."

Hopefully, somebody at the CDC and WHO will read Epstein's story.

WOULD CHINA ADMIT IT IF ITS
PIG POPULATION CARRIED
THE SARS-ASSOCIATED
CORONAVIRUS?

If history is an indication, the answer is yes--after they have been forced to. China has had many weeks to figure this out. The fact that food handlers seemed to be disproportionately affected by SARS should have been a hint that they should look at the first obvious suspects in the kitchen: ducks, chicken, and PIGS. It is unlikely that all the foodhandlers who came down with SARS were preparing owl tartare or tureen of alley cat. Unfortunately, the agricultural researchers in America seem about as eager to find out. Call up American pig researchers and ask them about SARS and pigs and you will get an earful of crankiness.

The FAO issued a fuzzy interview about the near impossibility of livestock transmission. Yeah, right. There's no evidence that SARS is being tramsmitted by livestock, but on the other hand, no research to determine if it can be transmitted by livestock has been completed. Research is under way, they say, rather grumpily. It will be interesting to see how they try and spin the story if livestock can carry the SARS-associated coronavirus.

An still, no scientist is willing to stand up and say that research exists which suggests the coronaviruses go back and forth between people and pigs with alarming ease.

We're back! This site is once again in the top
listings at Google (KEYWORDS: PIGS, SARS)
after completely disappearing!

THE WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION IS
LOOKING FOR PIGS IN CHINA TO TEST
FOR THE SARS-ASSOCIATED CORONAVIRUS

Accoding to an article by Rob Stein in the Contra Costa Times, "In southern China, teams [from the World Health Organization] are catching and testing pigs, birds and other animals in the hope of learning whether animals are harboring a reservoir of the new virus that could ignite another outbreak."

Please tell your friends about this site. It used to be in the top listings at Google (KEYWORDS: PIGS, SARS) but now it has completely disappeared from Google and we don't know why.


CAN PETS TRANSMIT THE
SARS-ASSOCIATED CORONAVIRUS?
Silence=Death

Why is the CDC and the World Health Organization not speaking up about the issue of pet transmission of SARS? Can cats and dogs transmit the SARS-associated coronavirus or not? Currrently in China, cat and dogs are undergoing SARS executions based on the assumption that they can.

The journalism on the story is muddled. Some stories suggest that the police are behind the move and that it is based on seeing dogs develop SARS. Other stories treat it like it is an irrational action based on panic.

Surely research to settle this could have been done a few weeks ago. If it turns out that cats and dogs can't transmit the disease, then there should be a campaign to stop the killing of pets in China. If they can transmit the disease, that suggests SARS is going to be a far bigger problem than any human quarantine can handle. It would be wise to get an honest answer about this sooner rather than later.

And while they're at it, we hope the CDC and WHO will figure out if pigs can transmit the SARS-associated coronavirus. If the pork industry will let them.

Please tell your friends about this site. It used to be in the top listings at Google (KEYWORDS: PIGS, SARS) but now it has completely disappeared from Google and we don't know why.


PIG SLAUGHTERING IS HALTED IN
SEVERAL OF CHINA'S PROVINCES
COULD CUT CHINESE PORK
PRODUCTION IN HALF

By Charles Ortleb

Channelnewsasia.com has reported that "People's Food Holdings will temporarily halt pig slaughtering at locations in several provinces of China and delay the start of a new plant due to concerns over the SARS outbreak."

According to the report, the plants that were closed accounted for half of all the pork sales by People's Food Holdings last year.

The report also notes that the company "will also stop the purchase of live pigs from suppliers in Hunan, Sichuan, Inner Mongolia and Henan Province."

Henan Province is one of he places where a SARS-like epidemic called PRRS (and various other bizarre and complicated names) has affected pigs for many years. Pigs with PRRS often develop coronavirus infections but it has yet to be established if the SARS-associated coronavirus is one of them. Japanese researchers have performed research that indicates that coronaviruses pass back and forth easily between people and pigs.

Click here for a database on SARS and pigs.


Charles Ortleb is the author of The Closing Argument and the co-author of The Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Follies.

# posted by rubicon : 1:51 PM