Bird Flu Talks Catching

January 15, 2008

	©The HSUS
	Crowded factory farms provide the perfect breeding ground for a deadly virus: highly pathogenic avian influenza.

Since September 2006, The HSUS's Dr. Michael Greger has toured dozens of U.S. cities and four countries overseas to warn people of a possible substantial health threat: a human flu pandemic, triggered by bird flu—or avian influenza—virus.

Why worry about influenza when there are so many more colorfully gruesome viruses out there like Ebola? Because influenza is scientists' top pick for humanity's next killer plague.

Up to 60 million Americans come down with the flu every year. What if it suddenly turned deadly?

Rooted in Agribusiness

The next pandemic virus may be manufactured in the filthy conditions common in factory farms, where chickens are packed together by the tens or hundreds of thousands in utter filth, allowing viruses to spread rapidly from bird to bird and mutate into very dangerous strains. 

This may be a virus of our own hatching coming home to roost.

Ronald Atlas, the graduate dean of the University of Louisville, attended one of Dr. Greger's bird flu lectures. It was "gripping and graphic," Atlas said. "[Greger] addressed the public health issues and provided a perspective many had not heard before."

Dr. Greger donates all proceeds from his books and speaking engagements to charity.

See a preview of Dr. Greger's lecture at University of Wisconsin Medicine (on YouTube) below. For the next stops on his speaking tour, click here.

 

See the Video

Bird Flu: A Virus of Our Own Hatching

Related Links

Avian Influenza: Keeping Your Family— and Your Pets—Safe and Healthy

Journal of the American Medical Association Commends Book That Implicates Factory Farming in Emerging Human Diseases

American Journal of Public Health Editorial Implicates Factory Farming in Emerging Human Diseases

Bird Flu Outbreak in England

Avian Influenza: Unjustly Blaming Outdoor Flocks

Avian Influenza: Flu Factories