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the process of cleaning, you’re in a moist atmosphere – things become aerosolized, it’s very high
<br />risk for people working at the slaughter house as well and veterinarians and lab workers as well,
<br />so, um, again, with brucellosis that can be spread through the urine and all fluids but primarily
<br />for farmers and ranchers – animals that are having abortions – how many times, oh, wait, the
<br />pigs aborting there’s one stuck let me go reach in and help or let me clean up the placentas –
<br />most people don’t wear gloves and that’s the number one way to become infected and that’s
<br />how I know one person who became infected. We found that farm on a trace – there was a
<br />farmer in one area that had feral pigs comingling with domestic was selling the domestic pigs as
<br />breeding stock to several farms and we found three other farms that were infected. One farm
<br />had only purchased animals from this one initial farm and the pigs were aborting and that
<br />person was dealing with it and became very, very sick. Fortunately, we had made contact
<br />through trace we found out some of the places where these pigs were sold to – not all of them –
<br />and we told the people – if you see these symptoms, if you have this – please let your doctors
<br />know. Every year we test about 25% of our domestic piggeries for both of these diseases, it’s
<br />free, um, we talked about biosecurity and um, you know, we try to establish a really good
<br />relationship with our pig farmers because they’re eyes on the ground if anything goes there and
<br />that lastly leads me to some of the really big scary diseases that are knocking on our door that
<br />probably have snuck into the United States periodically but never had a chance to really gain a
<br />foothold and I’m talking about things like Classical Swine fever – virus – African Swine Fever –
<br />which is really bad – it’s a virus too – and Foot and Mouth disease, um, those are three gnarly
<br />ones that we currently do not have in the United States but are only a plane ride away and if you
<br />think about it – African Swine Fever – one virus particle is all it takes to spread \[unclear\] disease.
<br />This is the disease that China lost half of their pigs from. Hundreds of millions of pigs died and
<br />it’s like Ebola for pigs. They get fevers of about 105 to 106 – they start hemorrhaging, um, very,
<br />very infectious and that virus particle can survive for a good period of time in the carcass as well
<br />and how many people just walking around from maybe their farm in different countries that are
<br />respected – you’ve got infection in the Philippines, Vietnam, Korea, China by all means, ah, in
<br />Europe as well too – there are more and more countries that are infected by this and if, let’s say,
<br />you go back to home country – family lives on a farm or something – you’re over there and you
<br />visit, you come back – when you go through the airport there’s’ no such thing as a foot bath
<br />there so who’s to say the same shoes you wore on your farm – your boots – you go out to do
<br />sweet potato or other farming and then the wild pigs come in and they root around where you
<br />just were – you just physically on your body brought that on it. So these are things we have to
<br />worry about and, and if you think about it even with the Foot and Mouth outbreak in the UK and
<br />when there were other diseases like that in Japan when the tourists would come off the plane
<br />there were no foot bathes there. So whereas, when I was in England for the Foot and Mouth
<br />outbreak – I flew back into New York –That person became very, very ill a few weeks after the
<br />abortions formed and, um, again, it took the doctor a little bit to figure out what was going on
<br />and sure enough I kind of figured out it was brucellosis that person was in the ICU and almost
<br />died from sepsis. Just be really, really, really, really, careful. Cooking the meat will kill this and
<br />it’s safe to eat. Same thing with pigs that are infected with pseudo rabies, which is a virus,
<br />pseudo rabies is different from regular rabies, pseudo rabies is a herpes virus so if we can
<br />imagine herpes is the gift that keeps on giving once a pig is infected it’s always infected – the
<br />offspring are infected. If they’re pregnant at the time, the babies can be born, and the immune
<br />system isn’t fully developed yet in early pregnancy and so \[unclear\] to have a herpes virus. So, it
<br />won’t even \[unclear\] an immune response – so you can have these carrier asymptomatic pigs
<br />spreading this. Again, it causes a lot of abortion in pigs and that’s why we regulate these
<br />diseases on Department of Ag because these are diseases that have a high economic impact to
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