You've probably heard of hepatitis A, which you can get from eating unsanitary food

in the developing world.

Then we discovered hepatitis B, which is spread by infected blood and bodily fluids, and

then hepatitis C, mostly from IV drug use.

These days we're up to hepatitis E, which is actually the main cause of viral

hepatitis worldwide. It was first discovered in the early 80s, but we didn't have a clue

where it was coming from until 1997, when it was discovered more than 90% of tested U.S.

pig farms from the Viral Hepatitis Division of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention,

the CDC, much meat, much malady.

Hepatitis E is now considered a zoonosis, an animal-to-human disease that causes 20 million

human cases a year, primarily from pigs via the consumption of infected pork products.

The hepatitis E virus has since been detected on pig farms worldwide,

including 80 to 100 percent of U.S. operations,

where it spread via the fecal-oral route.

So, no surprise, there's such widespread infection

on industrial confinement operations given how closely packed together the animals are.

Though if you test pigs where it counts in terms of food safety at the slaughterhouse,

only 6% of U.S. pigs have active infections, meaning infectious virus flowing through the bloodstreams at the time of slaughter.

At a retail level, about 10% of commercial pork products tested worldwide contained the hepatitis E virus,

found in pork meat and sausage, as well as organ meats like the liver,

were the highest rates found in North America.

So, for example, in California, though only 12% of samples were positive for the virus,

...