So, the world is on the precipice of a pandemic as fears grow over the swine flu outbreak.

Authorities are quick to point out the disease can't be caught by eating pork but that is rather missing the point. The finger of blame is increasingly pointing towards intensive animal farming — factory farming.

To keep the supply of cheap meat flowing, billions of animals are mistreated in filthy, unhygienic and overcrowded slums. This is the cause of hospital superbugs, antibiotic-resistant food poisoning bugs and, most likely, bird flu and swine flu.

In Mexico, intensive pig farming is big business, with tens of thousands of pigs on a single factory farm. But it's not just happening in Mexico.

Almost all the nine million pigs we kill each year in the UK are farmed intensively; kept in cramped, filthy conditions.

Intensive farming is unnatural and produces animals whose immune systems are shot to pieces.

Diseases spread like wildfire and there is a kind of Petri dish 'pick 'n' mix' for bacteria and viruses that can swap genetic material and produce entirely new strains.

This happens because the average Brit eats 11,000 animals in a lifetime. By going vegetarian, fewer animals are bred to be eaten, fewer animals are intensively farmed and the risk to human health decreases.

As a nation we are at last eating less meat, with 50 million fewer animals slaughtered each year than three years ago. This is the way to go if we want to save animals and protect ourselves and our families.

For free advice on how to go vegetarian, contact Viva!, 8 York Court, Wilder Street, Bristol BS2 8QH, or phone 0117 944 1000.

Justin Kerswell

Campaigns manager

Viva!

(by email)