mutate
On the contrary, it is only when these viruses enter a high-density poultry operation that they mutate into something far more virulent. By contrast, birds that are reared by traditional methods are likely to have greater resistance to disease than the stressed, genetically similar birds kept in intensive confinement systems. Moreover, factory farms are not biologically secure. They are frequently infested with mice, rats and other animals that can bring in diseases.
So far, a relatively small number of human beings have died from the current strain of avian influenza, and it appears that they have all been in contact with infected birds. But if the virus mutates into a form that is transmissible between humans, the number of deaths could run into the hundreds of millions.
Governments are, rightly, taking action to prepare for this threat. Recently, the US Senate approved spending US$8 billion to stockpile vaccines and other drugs to help prevent a possible bird flu epidemic. Other governments have already spent tens of millions of dollars on vaccines and other preventive measures.
What is now clear, however, is that such government spending is really a kind of subsidy to the poultry industry. Like most subsidies, it is bad economics. Factory farming spread because it seemed to be cheaper than more traditional methods. In fact, it was cheaper only because it passed some of its costs on to others -- for example, to people who lived downstream or downwind from the factory farms and could no longer enjoy clean water and air.
Now we see that these were only a small part of the total costs. Factory farming is passing far bigger costs -- and risks -- on to all of us. In economic terms, these costs should be "internalized" by the factory farmers rather than being shifted onto the rest of us.
That won't be easy to do, but we could make a start by imposing a tax on factory-farm products until enough revenue is raised to pay for the precautions that governments now have to take against avian influenza. Then we might finally see that chicken from the factory farm really isn't so cheap after all.
Peter Singer is professor of bioethics at Princeton University.
Copyright: Project Syndicate
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