Is it a virus or a bacteria?

We don't know.

Is this an international health hazard or a military concern?

Both.

Will this thing jump from animals to humans?

This is a possibility, we don't know.

How does it spread? Is it airborne?

We don't know.

Is that the truth?

Is that the truth?

As an investigative journalist, going undercover is what I've done my whole life.

I could smell the disease in the air.

I knew something was seriously wrong.

When I started to ask questions, I was sacked.

I just need a few pictures and I'll blow this story wide open.

I just hope I can get back in there.

This is BBC, Radio Kent.

The family of an elderly woman who died of MRSA

following treatment at Southampton General hospital,

say their request for answers, has been ignored.

It's nearly a year since 82 year old Julia Bird has passed away.

Hello, you've reached the voicemail of Jack Tomlins,

photojournalist for the Guard-Media. Please leave a message.

Oh my god, Jack, where are you?

There are police at the Guard-Media centre looking for you.

What's happened?

Why haven't you called back in?

Please call us as soon as you get this.

What you're about to see is not a work of fiction.

Is it that unbelievable that pigs could turn on us?

Rising up from their world of hidden misery, disease and suffering.

In the UK, we are a nation of animal lovers.

However, our compassion does not extend to all of them.

Out of sight, and out of mind, these animals have no names, and we never hear their voices.

In their short lives, most of these intelligent beings, will never see the light of day.

This is the story of the self-interested forces driving the UK's most dangerous industry.

Antibiotics are a modern miracle.

Each day they save thousands of lives,

and our one of humanity's greatest achievements.

But we have taken these miracle drugs for granted.

We have become reliant on medication to keep us healthy.

While our desire for more animal products is making us sick.

It is this desire to eat animals that puts the future effectiveness of antibiotics at risk.

The mass industrialisation of meat production has led to countless public health crises.

Foot and mouth disease.

World's worst ever epidemic.

Mad cow disease.

it would be the first case of BSE (Bovine spongiform encephalopathy) found in Ireland since 2013.

They're diseases which can kill, and we're running out of drugs.

Swine flu, avian flu, and salmonella.

Now, there is a new threat.

MRSA.

MRSA, of course can cause fatal illnesses.

The abuse and disease rife in factory farms puts us all at risk.

In reality it's very unlikely that pigs would rise up against humans.

But the threat of antibiotic resistance is real,

and deadly.

The drugs we use to treat ourselves

and our children are becoming evermore ineffective.

We are facing a post-antibiotic age,

where even a simple cut, or regular operation could cost us our lives.

All because of the way we exploit animals to produce our food.

We have been sold an insidious lie by the meat industry,

that puts us all at risk.

And I want to show you why.

Pigs are descendants of wild boar.

We enslaved this animal and embarked on generations

of selective breeding and medication.

The housewife will buy pork when she can get what she wants.

When she can find lean ham in the meat markets,

she'll buy it.

The factory farmed pig in 2016 grows unnaturally fast,

and is forced to have more piglets.

Despite man made modifications,

these pigs remain highly intelligent, complex and playful beings.

Just like us, they have emotions, they feel pain.

They remember the good, and the bad.

Meat is good for you, and there are many kinds:

There's beef, there's pork and ham.

They're important for good health, clear skin and bright eyes.

Our society glamorizes meat consumption.

Everyone loves a bit of pork.

Advertising bombards us with images of pigs flesh, smoked and grilled.

Machine gun bacon.

Bacon has become the symbol of our meat obsession.

Look at this bacon.

Bacon you can't eat, is bacon you don't need.

We have grown disconnected from these animals.

Just what the industrialised, factory farming business wanted.

Prospective porker passengers

apparently as anxious to board their trains,

as subway commuters.

Conditions in the UK's pig farms are at an all time low.

The meat industry won't stop factory farming.

They create their own welfare standards, like Red Tractor

to reassure the public about conditions of factory farms.

These standards are virtually meaningless.

It's inspected to ensure the pork you buy,

has come from pigs that are well looked after,

and raised to good standards by responsible farmers.

They are a smokescreen to prop up

ailing consumer confidence in factory farming.

Viva's Face-Off investigations found squalid conditions

and disease in Red Tractor farms.

She's called 503.

Her other baby's dying.

Society's lust for cheap meat

means a life of disease and misery for all factory farm pigs.

The new pork, an exciting taste treat.

Pigs account for the majority of farm antibiotic use in the UK;

approximately 60%

And shockingly,

about half of all antibiotics prescribed in the UK,

are used in farmed animals,

not people.

The intensive nature of this type of farming,

makes it an ideal breeding ground for disease.

Antibiotic use in pigs, is an everyday occurrence on factory farms.

Despite the fact that drugs used to promote pig growth are banned,

they continue to be used under the guise of disease prevention.

A mixture of cramped conditions,

and low genetic diversity in the pig population,

means disease can spread rapidly in factory farms.

Our careless approach to the welfare of these creatures,

will come back to bite us.

In 2015, the Guardian tested samples of pig meat in Europe.

They found that 9/100 samples

had a new strain of antibiotic resistant MRSA.

This particular type of MRSA

is clearly now well established in UK farms.

The samples came from Denmark and Ireland.

But, elsewhere, Cambridge university identified two

samples of antibiotic resistant MRSA in UK pig meat.

Shocking.

And a clear sign that another health crisis is brewing

due solely to the practice of factory farming.

Antimicrobial resistance is a direct and immediate threat to human health.

What we're seeing, is more and more bacteria

are resistant to antibiotics.

This MRSA bacteria has already transferred from pigs,

directly onto the skin of farm workers.

People carry the organism in their nostrils,

in their throat,

on their hands.

And sadly, it doesn't stop there.

In November 2015,

a group of Chinese scientists published a paper

in The Lancet Infectious Diseases Journal,

reporting the discovery of a new antibiotic resistant gene

called MCR1.

These tests, found the MCR1 gene in 166 of 804 pigs

tested at slaughter.

This gene creates resistance in the body to a drug called

colistin.

A powerful antibiotic used in humans

as a last resort, when other medicines fail.

Resistant to antibiotics of last resort.

Colistin is commonly used Europe to treat animals and bacteria.

Samples containing the MCR1,

have been found across Asia and Europe, including the UK.

The antibiotic resistant gene, MCR1,

is readily passed between common bacteria, such as E. coli.

If this goes on, we will see the end of modern medicine.

Don't think that this is a problem that would solve itself.

Just by closing your eyes.

Our consumption of pig meat, means, that as a society

we are consuming meat from animals regularly given antibiotics.

Possibly also harbouring disease.

Why the antibiotics?

Why the secrecy?

Why are we not told the truth?

The UK has a dangerous secret.

Factory farming is cruel, dirty and rife with disease.

The business of exploitation, is the business of profit.

Factory farms and the organisations they supply,

have long lost sight of the welfare of animals and consumers.

Factory farms are out of sight,

and out of mind.

Surely, it is our duty to do better than this.

Together, we can say no to cruelty, death, and disease.

Things are changing.

Veganism is a rapidly growing social justice movement

that has seen a growth of 350% in the UK, in the past 10 years.

It challenges the dominant culture of the oppression of animals.

During their Face-Off campaign,

Viva! found that the UK public doesn't believe

the reality for factory farmed pigs is fair.

We are a nation of animal lovers.

Yet our society gives certain animals no rights, no freedom and no dignity.

A different future is possible.

And today, you can make a difference.

Just don't buy pork products.

It really is that simple.

All around the world people are choosing Veganism and thriving.

You can be part of this.

Simply face off to the truth,

and choose a different path for yourself,

and for the animals.

A path towards a world

where compassion is placed front and centre

of everything we do.

English subtitles: VeganMegane (twitter)