But at what cost? Apart from the fact that it sounds disgusting and cruel, doesn’t this also sound like how mad cow disease began?
Sows commonly eat their own piglets. Farmers try to prevent this, of course, but it’s not for biosecurity reasons. It’s because an eaten piglet is lost money. Prions are not known to be found in pork, however the FDA still prohibits the sale of spinal and brain tissue to humans, which is where prions are most commonly found. Do we know that the farmers are feeding spinal and brain tissue to the sows?
Could it somehow eventually end up harming human populations?
Open-ended question is open-ended.
And couldn’t less stressful conditions for pigs help their immune systems fight off the disease outbreak, without resorting to such an extreme practice?
Yes, but also no. Certainly, pigs in less stressful conditions are going to be better able to fight off a disease, but I don’t think you understand just how serious PEDV is. It is analogous to cholera in humans. The treatment is, basically, hydration therapy, rest, and time, but when you have hundreds or thousands of pigs, putting each of them on a little piggy saline IV is not an option. Something must be done to reduce the virus’s expression, above and beyond the normal immune response.
