Big Farms Make Big Flu

Dispatches on Influenza, Agribusiness, and the Nature of Science

Rob Wallace

• Publisher: Monthly Review Press
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781583675915
• Topic: Política y relaciones internacionales
• Subtopic: Política agrícola pública

Thanks to breakthroughs in production and food science, agribusiness has been able to devise new ways to grow more food and get it more places more quickly. There is no shortage of news items on hundreds of thousands of hybrid poultry – each animal genetically identical to the next – packed together in megabarns, grown out in a matter of months, then slaughtered, processed and shipped to the other side of the globe. Less well known are the deadly pathogens mutating in, and emerging out of, these specialized agro-environments. In fact, many of the most dangerous new diseases in humans can be traced back to such food systems, among them Campylobacter, Nipah virus, Q fever, hepatitis E, and a variety of novel influenza variants.

Agribusiness has known for decades that packing thousands of birds or livestock together results in a monoculture that selects for such disease. But market economics doesn't punish the companies for growing Big Flu – it punishes animals, the environment, consumers, and contract farmers. Alongside growing profits, diseases are permitted to emerge, evolve, and spread with little check. “That is,” writes evolutionary biologist Rob Wallace, “it pays to produce a pathogen that could kill a billion people.”

In Big Farms Make Big Flu, a collection of dispatches by turns harrowing and thought-provoking, Wallace tracks the ways influenza and other pathogens emerge from an agriculture controlled by multinational corporations. Wallace details, with a precise and radical wit, the latest in the science of agricultural epidemiology, while at the same time juxtaposing ghastly phenomena such as attempts at producing featherless chickens, microbial time travel, and neoliberal Ebola. Wallace also offers sensible alternatives to lethal agribusiness. Some, such as farming cooperatives, integrated pathogen management, and mixed crop-livestock systems, are already in practice off the agribusiness grid.

While many books cover facets of food or outbreaks, Wallace's collection appears the first to explore infectious disease, agriculture, economics and the nature of science together. Big Farms Make Big Flu integrates the political economies of disease and science to derive a new understanding of the evolution of infections. Highly capitalized agriculture may be farming pathogens as much as chickens or corn.

PART ONE

“Yes, my dear fellow. It is my suspicion that the Spire has been tolerating the drone until now—lulling us, if you will, into a false sense of security. Yet now the Spire has decreed that we must discard that particular mental crutch. It will no longer permit us to gain any knowledge of the contents of a room until one of us steps into it. And at that moment it will prevent any of us leaving until we have solved that problem.”

“You mean it’s changing the rules as it goes along?” Hirz asked.

The Doctor turned his exquisite silver mask towards her. “Which rules did you have in mind, Hirz?”

—ALASTAIR REYNOLDS (2002)

The Great Bird Flu Blame Game

A rose may retain its fragrance under all vicissitudes of human taxonomy, but never doubt the power of a name to shape and direct our thoughts.

—STEPHEN JAY GOULD (2002)

You give each other names you give everything names to assert your place. But we have names too. We take the form of what brought us here—and we take the name of what we killed to stay.

—ADAM HINES (2010)

THE WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION HAS proposed new nomenclature for the various strains of influenza A (H5N1), the bird flu virus circulating in Eurasia and Africa.¹⁰ The strains would now be enumerated rather than named after their countries or regions of origin.

WHO declares the change necessary because of the confusion caused by disparate naming systems presently used in the scientific literature. A unified system of nomenclature would facilitate the interpretation of genetic and surveillance data generated by different labs. It would also provide a framework for revising strain names based on viral characteristics. The new system would at the same time bring an end to the stigmatization caused when flu strains are named after their places of origin.

I am a public health phylogeographer. I use the genetic sequences of viruses and bacteria, including H5N1, to make discoveries about pathogen geographic spread and evolution. The proposed nomenclature has direct impact on the work I do.

On the one hand, the proposed changes seem reasonable enough. The new system would offer H5N1 taxonomy room to grow. For instance, the Qinghai-like strain of H5N1 that has spread west from Lake Qinghai in northwestern China across Eurasia and into Africa has undergone subsequent diversification.¹¹ The new groups must somehow be designated something beyond “Qinghai-like.”

On the other hand, including geography in the strain names allows easier recognition than the open-ended enumeration WHO proposes. “Fujian-like” is more readily identifiable than “Clade 2.2.4.” Perhaps more fundamentally, as defined by variation in the virus’s hemagglutinin and neuraminidase surface proteins, many H5N1 strains are geographically associated, either by their current distribution or place of origin. Clade 2.1 is currently limited to Indonesia. Clade 2.2, the Qinghai-like strain, spread west from Lake Qinghai (although the strain has since been traced a step back to Lake Poyang in Jiangxi).¹²

On its face, this appears a technical problem, one for the scientists and bureaucrats to hash out. But there may be more at stake. The proposed changes represent an epidemiological approach that may threaten our ability to impute bird flu’s causes, to implement appropriate interventions, and to name the names of those responsible for controlling local outbreaks.

If a strain of bird flu appears to newly emerge out of a specific province or state of an affected country, that country is responsible for intervening in a way that the outbreak and any sequelae are controlled. Labeling a strain by its probable locale of origin reminds us which countries are responsible and where attention must be directed. Even if the strains subsequently spread, their geographic origins are integral to learning more about the virus’s molecular and epidemiological characteristics, as well as preventing the emergence of similar strains.

Cause and blame, then, appear to be the crux of the matter. The terminology WHO characterizes as “stigmatizing” may be viewed instead as solely definitional, a part of pinpointing causality.

Unfortunately, on first appraisal WHO’s stance has history in its favor. Epidemiological nomenclature has long been a minefield. Diseases have been tagged with baseless labels often inspired by xenophobia. The French disease, Spanish influenza, illnesses imputed to the “Yellow Peril”—all wrongly affixed or associated. Here, though, WHO’s explanation seems a stretch. “Bird flu” has no geographic tag and the origins of those strains that do are established by scientific investigation rather than knee-jerk bigotry.

WHO’s terminological umbrella also seems overly protective. Should national governments whose policies contribute to the rise of a disease be treated as if they are defenseless minorities discriminated against because of an ill-conceived notion of disease etiology? Should health and agricultural ministries be regarded as if they have been targeted with the groundless prejudice Haitians suffered in the early days of the AIDS epidemic?

Something more than sensitivity on WHO’s part to past injustices seems in play. An exploration of the recent political economy of bird flu research will show the proposed nomenclature part of an effort by WHO to placate member countries that are currently apparent sources for many of the new bird flu strains. Without these members’ cooperation, WHO would have no or little access to H5N1 isolates from which genetic sequences and possible vaccines can be derived.

We need ask, however, at what price such appeasement comes. Do we lose the very means by which to maneuver recalcitrant countries into intervening into local epidemics that may threaten the welfare of the rest of the world?

The proposed nomenclature seems emblematic of larger efforts on the part of WHO and many of the world’s governments to stage-manage an influenza pandemic. For the conspiracy nuts out there, this isn’t to say WHO or any lab or agency of any government started bird flu. Influenza viruses have long circulated among migratory birds and within the last few hundred years have become adapted to humanity’s industrial way of life.¹³ Nor is WHO out-and-out negligent. I believe WHO genuinely focused on fighting bird flu.

Still, like many institutions, WHO is maneuvering to protect itself. The bird flu train may have already left the epidemiological station and a pandemic may now be all but inevitable. In what would be a catastrophic failure on the part of governments and health ministries worldwide, millions may die.

Who, then, if not the affected countries, will take the blame? International institutions entrusted with preventing catastrophe are often made scapegoats for their members’ failures. The Second World War destroyed the League of Nations. A pandemic could do the same to WHO. The new nomenclature may represent one means by which the organization is attempting to extricate itself out of the political line of fire.

ADVERSE REACTIONS

In late 2006 virologist Guan Yi and his colleagues at the University of Hong Kong reported on a previously uncharacterized H5N1 lineage they named “Fujian-like,” after the putative Chinese province of origin.¹⁴ They ascribed the emergence of the strain as a viral evolutionary reaction to the government’s campaign to vaccinate poultry. The virus appeared to evolve from underneath the vaccine coverage.

Chinese officials went ballistic, rejecting the findings.

“The data cited in the article was unauthentic, and the research methodology was not based on science,” Jia Youling, China’s chief veterinary officer, told a news conference.¹⁵

“In fact, there is no such thing as a new ‘Fujian-like’ virus variant at all,” said Jia.

The University of Hong Kong report appeared to deeply embarrass the Chinese government. As WHO officials pointed out, if the government, which has a parallel surveillance effort, didn’t know of the emergent strain the new strain would in some minds betray governmental incompetence. If officials did know of the Fujian-like strain, their refusal to inform the international community would imply a cover-up along the lines of SARS.¹⁶

Even without maps of local H5N1 spread, the Chinese surely recognized their southern provinces were ground zero for the first, and many subsequent, H5N1 outbreaks.

On the other hand, we should appreciate that bird flu is a difficult problem and would be for any national government. Imagine rolling outbreaks across twenty-six U.S. states—Hurricane Katrina writ large. Would CDC, USDA and Fish and Wildlife, currently staffed with unqualified Bush political appointees, be capable of reacting any differently to such a viral onslaught? I do not excuse the Chinese government, but offer the acknowledgment as a preemptive response to what will likely be attempts to paint bird flu as another case of Chinese exceptionalism. Governments worldwide are unprepared.

The pressure on Chinese health officials must be enormous and a tone of hysteria is hard to miss. But even as we recognize the source of the government’s reaction, must we accept the claims imparted in its manifestation?

“It is utterly groundless to assert that the outbreak of bird flu in Southeast Asian countries was caused by avian influenza in China and there would be a new outbreak wave in the world,” said Jia. Not true.

“Since 2004, China has been keeping a close eye on the bird flu situation in its southern regions,” said Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao.¹⁷ “Gene sequence analysis shows that all the variants of the virus found in southern China share high uniformity, meaning they all belong to the same gene type.” Also not true.

“No distinctive change was found in their biological characteristics,” Liu continued. Again not true.

With colleagues at the University of California I published a report in March 2007 that identified the geographic source of multiple strains of highly pathogenic influenza A (H5N1).¹⁸ Our analysis of H5N1 genetic sequences collected through 2005 across twenty Eurasian localities showed Guangdong, another southeastern province, the likely source of H5N1 strains spreading regionally within China and in other countries, including Indonesia, Japan, Thailand, and Vietnam.

While our paper did not address the Fujian-like variant, the results refuted the assertion that China had nothing to do with repeated regional and international outbreaks of H5N1. It is clear that multiple strains have evolved in and dispersed from southern China and, as other work shows, continue to do so. Indeed, scientists from Guangdong’s own South China Agricultural University contributed to a 2005 report showing that a new H5N1 genotype arose in western Guangdong in 2003–4.¹⁹

Official reaction to our work was nearly identical in its virulence to that directed at the Hong Kong scientists. Yu Yedong, head of the Guangdong Animal Epidemic Prevention Institute and the Guangdong Bird Flu Prevention Center called our work “unscientific” and “ridiculous.”²⁰

He Xia, a spokesperson for the Guangdong Provincial Agricultural Department, told China Daily the study was flawed and lacked credibility.²¹ “Actually, Guangdong did not witness any bird flu cases in 1996. As a result, the findings are not based on facts,” He Xia said.

He’s statements are curious given that samples of highly pathogenic H5N1 were isolated by Chinese scientists from a 1996 outbreak on a goose farm in Guangdong.²² News reports during the initial H5N1 outbreak in Hong Kong in 1997 also detailed local health officials’ decision to ban poultry imports from Guangdong where several batches of infected chickens originated.²³

MULTILATERAL MANIPULATION

The Chinese government isn’t the sole source of official denials and delay.

Indonesia’s health minister, Siti Fadilah Supari, claimed that findings by a University of Washington team showing that a cluster of infections among members of a Sumatran family were spread by human-to-human infection had “misled the public.”²⁴

“It’s pure logic. . . . If there had been human-to-human transmission, it would have already swept the country and killed thousands,” Supari told a news conference.²⁵ Evidence of human-to-human infection, however, does not require an ensuing pandemic. Chains of transmission may burn out by chance alone.

Supari serves at WHO as well. She was elected a vice president of the World Health Assembly in 2006 and this year unanimously elected a member of the WHO executive board. The executive board has its share of problems, particularly its nettle of competing interests.²⁶ But one can imagine the impact on the morale of WHO scientists when a member of the organization’s leadership rejects scientific findings in favor of nationalist expediency.

Indeed, WHO staff have openly criticized Supari. On another matter—Indonesia’s refusal to share H5N1 samples—David Heymann, WHO’s assistant director-general for communicable diseases, said of Supari that “she has always said she doesn’t trust WHO, and she’s finding new reasons not to trust us.”²⁷ Although W...