Watani International
7 March 2010
The pig has become a controversial animal since the outbreak of the A-H1N1, commonly known as swine flu in Spring 2009. At first, the scare about the emerging infection resulted in incorrect information attributing the spread of “swine” flu to pigs. The government of Egypt hastily took the decision to eradicate all the pigs in the country, prompting the World Health Organisation (WHO) to change the name to the scientific A-H1N1. Despite evident clarification that H1N1 spreads from human-to-human and not through pigs, the Egyptian government eradicated the pigs without the necessary planning or consideration to health risks, economic consequences, or humanitarian concerns.
Pig culling was implemented rapidly despite the pleading of the garbage collectors’ who were losing their livelihood, since their main income was generated from pig farming, garbage recycling, and use of organic material to feed the pigs. The merciless methods used to kill the pigs created a huge national and international uproar about animal cruelty.
A few months later, the ramifications of the hasty decision of the pig culling came into sight. Piles of garbage accumulated all over Cairo, even in upper class neighbourhoods. In September 2009, Giza Governor Sayed Abdel-Aziz admitted the incapability of handling over 15,000 tons of garbage piling up in the streets, and publicly regretted the culling decision.
The pig culling issue again surfaced when Egypt’s Health Minister Hatem al-Gabali said, in a TV talk show with host Amr al-Leithy last December that the pig culling decision had been taken not to prevent H1N1 transmission but for hygiene reasons. An implication of a sectarian root was possible.
Interestingly, the controversy about the pig dates back to ancient times. Pig is a “taboo” in some folkloric and ancient mythologies. Ancient Egyptians considered pigs “unclean”. Seth, god of chaos, took the form of a pig. Pigs were seen as evil and pig behaviour turned into disdain, particularly its method of eating, which remains ridiculed in the daily language of many people until the present day. In Ancient Greek mythology pigs were a symbol of the underworld and death.
When pigs were taken to be burned alive in caustic soda, one would have expected them to fight back. Why didn’t they? Studies about pigs show that they are loving, kind, and affectionate animals. Interestingly, researchers consider them among the smart animals, as clever as dolphins and elephants.
Pig contribution to medical research has been quite significant. For the past two decades, pigs have been used in biomedical research and as models of human disease based upon their own unique anatomy and physiology. They are also extensively used for training in surgical techniques, in emergency medical procedures, and in surgery practice for students training in some medical schools. In surgeries, pig intestines are utilised as threads for surgical stitches.
Some of the main benefits to humans are the outcome of the use of pigs in cardiology research. Pig hearts are used for heart valve replacements, particularly in conditions of mitral valve regurgitation or prolapse. Countless patients are alive today because pigs valves implants substituted their diseased heart valves.
Pocrine insulin is another outcome of biomedical research on pigs. The protein isolated from pig pancreas is well tolerated by humans. Billions of shots of insulin keep diabetics alive every day.
The skin of pigs shares many characteristics with that of humans. They have been used frequently as models for wound healing and are applied as skin grafts in burn victims. Moreover, pigs are being studied to produce stem cells which show prospect in regenerating tissues, for example nerves to treat paralysis.
Pigs continue to be a corner stone of medical research. In past decades they were used to study diseases such as tuberculosis and bronchial asthma. Prospective research on pigs includes xenotransplants, which is their use as organ donors to replace or compensate for the lack of human donors. Pig tissues provide a main prospect for heart, kidney, and liver transplants. From this brief overview, it is clear that pigs have and will continue to contribute to medical research and its advantages to the human health.
The writer of this article is a vegetarian; however, like millions or billions of vegetarians across the globe, the fact that we do not eat any kind of meat, whether beef, poultry, or pork, does not justify killing any meat-producing animal.