|
Viva!
|
|
|||
|
8 November 2001 There is no known cure, up to 40 per cent of Britain’s pig herd is infected and mortality can hit 30 per cent. The acute wasting diseases PMWS (post-weaning, multi-systemic wasting syndrome) and PDNS (porcine dermatitis nephropathy) were unknown ten years ago but are now sweeping through the UK herd, are costing up to £40 million annually and are causing pigs untold suffering. No one knows where these diseases originated but they are thought to be spread by too-early weaning, the overuse of antibiotics, bad hygiene and mixing pigs from different sources. These are all factors inherent in factory farming, which accounts for more than 90 per cent of meat pigs produced in Britain. "How many more warnings do we need?," asks Juliet Gellatley, director of animal group Viva!. "We stagger from one infectious crisis to another and nothing changes. As with foot and mouth disease, it is the animals who suffer the pain and distress of these illnesses but humans are also being threatened through deadly, antibiotic-resistant superbugs - also a product of these cruel farming systems." "Earlier this year we exposed the barbarity, filth and overcrowding in 18 ‘ordinary’ pig farms but both our video footage and 76-page report were dismissed by the livestock industry and government. They want nothing to change. It was in one of these slums that foot and mouth started and it is where new diseases are mutating and developing. This protection of institutionalised animal cruelty and disease sources has to end - factory farming has to end before it ends us." PMWS and PDNS were confined to the
south of England just two years ago but they had infected 20 per cent
of the national herd by last December. That figure has now doubled in
less than a year. While mass slaughter is not required by Defra, pigs
who survive suffer severe wasting and become less productive, according
to the Meat & Livestock Commission. There is no cure and the condition
lasts for up to three years. For copies of Viva!’s Pig in Hell video expose of factory farming; our 76-page report (which includes detailed information on drug use and pig diseases - including PMWS and PDNS) or for further information, contact Juliet Gellatley or Tony Wardle on 0117 944 1000. Video footage and the Pig in Hell report can also be seen on our website - www.viva.org.uk |
||||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
|
