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The emergence and spread of virulent strains of avian influenza has been attributed by experts to the intensely overcrowded, unsanitary, and stressful conditions that often characterize large-scale factory farming in industrialized agriculture.

In nature, disease-causing strains of avian influenza rarely spread far because the birds sicken and die before they can fly to spread it to others.

There's always the danger when you have influenzas that infect chickens, that when you have the close quarters of chickens spreading from one to another and occasionally a human coming into close contact, that there will be the jumping of species from a chicken to a human. This is not something new.

Rising demand for animal products highlights microbiological risks, with animal-welfare measures sometimes creating new hazards. For example, open pens for poultry may increase the spread of communicable diseases like avian influenza.

New diseases like SARS and bird flu cause anxiety in the community. People get worried, some to the extent that it even affects their health. You feel very sad, and yet you must carry on and maintain your cool in very trying and difficult moments. You have to tough it out.

When you're under stress, your immune system doesn't work as well.

Scientists suggest that the link between consuming poultry and cancer spread may be due to carcinogens in cooked meat. For unknown reasons, these carcinogens build up more in the muscles of chickens and turkeys than in those of other animals.

Sometimes your immune system gets a little heated, and you're more susceptible to getting some illnesses that way.

Sick animals can lead to sick people.

The largest outbreak of bird flu in American history was an H5N2 virus, which led to the deaths of 17 million domestic birds and cost the nation more than $400 million during an outbreak in Pennsylvania that started in 1983.