The Triangle of Doom - The Monster at Our Door: The Global Threat of Avian Flu - page 34

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The Triangle of Doom

We need to look in our own backyard for where the next pandemic may appear. 132
Christopher Olsen

The SARS pandemic ratified Guangdong's exceptional importance as a disease epicenter. But does Guang-
dong have a unique franchise? Some influenza experts believe that all pandemics originate in the mixed
swine-and-poultry agriculture of south China, a near-dogma that makes them resist compelling evidence
that the 1918 reassortant first emerged in Kansas. 133 Other researchers, however, argue that the environ-
mental preconditions for the rapid interspecies evolution of influenza are now found elsewhere, and they
point specifically to the ecological impacts of the export-led industrialization of poultry and pork produc-
tion since the 1980s.
This so-called Livestock Revolution has been primarily driven by Third World urbanization and the
rising demand in developing countries—above all, China—for poultry, pork, and dairy products. Although
Third World urban dwellers are obviously poorer than their OECD counterparts, a much larger percentage
of income growth is expended on animal protein, and this is the demand engine that currently drives huge
increases in chicken and swine populations. According to Australian researchers, “The [global] share of
meat and milk consumed in developing countries rose from 37 to 53 percent and from 34 to 44 percent,
respectively, from 1983 to 1997. . . . By contrast, both per capita and aggregate milk and meat consumption
stagnated in the developed world, where saturation levels of consumption have been reached and popu-
lation growth is small.” From the standpoint of influenza ecology, moreover, it is striking that pork and
poultry constitute 76 percent of the developing world's increased meat consumption, and poultry has ac-
counted for almost all of the small net increase in rich countries' food consumption. 135

The viral “food

supply”—poultry, swine, and humans—has been dramatically enlarged.

Table 7.1.
The Livestock Revolution 134