'Big Pork' Wants to Get In on Organ Transplants

Pig-to-human organ transplants are still many years and a few technical breakthroughs away. But pork byproducts—to use the industry term for the non-meat bits—already turn up in all sorts of drugs and medical devices for humans. It’s not just heparin. Skin, hormonal glands, and heart valves are some of the common pork byproducts in the biomedical industry. Special breeds of pigs are also used to test medical devices. Pigs are similar in size and genetics to humans, and factory farming has made them very widely available.

 Gene Editing Spurs Hope for Transplanting Pig Organs Into Humans

In a striking advance that helps open the door to organ transplants from animals, researchers have created gene-edited piglets cleansed of viruses that might cause disease in humans.

America Has a Bacon Problem: Our Pigs Aren’t Fat Enough

A hankering for lardier pork chops and greasier sausages has butchers scrambling to acquire the porky breeds of yore.

Could Bacon Be A Danger To The World?

From human slavery to environmental catastrophe, Big Ag threatens life as we know it.

Deadly Hog Virus Continues Spread: No Joyful Pig Pickin' For Farmers

Porcine epidemic diarrhea virus, or PEDv, infects the cells lining the intestines of the pig and causes severe diarrhea, vomiting, and dehydration. It's lethal and swift: PEDv ultimately kills 50 to 80 percent of newborn and suckling pigs while older feeder or grower pigs are more capable of fighting the virus, suffering only a 1 to 3 percent death rate.

Death of a Pig

I spent several days and nights in mid-September with an ailing pig and I feel driven to account for this stretch of time, more particularly since the pig died at last, and I lived, and things might easily have gone the other way round and none left to do the accounting.

Our Big Pig Problem

The data from multiple studies over the years support the conclusion that low doses of antibiotics in animals increase the number of drug-resistant microbes in both animals and people.

Our Pigs, Our Food, Our Health

The larger question is whether we as a nation have moved to a model of agriculture that produces cheap bacon but risks the health of all of us. And the evidence, while far from conclusive, is growing that the answer is yes.

Pig Farmers Are Struggling To Keep Up With America’s Bacon Needs

Looks like we all need to embrace the Meatless Monday-type mentality if we want to give our bacon producers a chance to catch up with our demand.

Pork Perspectives

Pork Perspectives is a place where leading experts share insights on industry topics such as pig disease, employee management, new technology and groundbreaking research and advocacy.

Top 10 Reasons Not to Eat Pigs

Attention, shoppers: Stop picking up dead “Babes” and “Wilburs” at the grocery store! Here are our top 10 reasons to keep pork off your fork and put delicious Babe-free alternatives on your shopping list instead.

We're All Gamblers at Heart...

Pigs can be incredibly challenging pets… and once they have learned a few bad behaviors they can seem downright impossible. As we all know, pigs are exceptionally smart and can also seem unbelievably stubborn; successfully changing behaviors can be time-consuming and frustrating.