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 missing the point. The finger of blame is increasingly pointing towards intensive animal farming – factory farming.

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

Almost all the nine million pigs we kill each year in the UK are farmed intensively; kept in cramped, often 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 and mix' for bacteria and viruses that can swap genetic material and produce entirely new strains.

This happens because the average Brit eats over 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.

JUSTIN KERSWELL Campaigns Manager, Viva!

Wilder Street, Bristol