Zoonosis II
Electric Boogaloo
Recently, I pointed out that raising and killing animals for food is the leading cause of emerging diseases and pandemics, and that we need to stop. I'm writing again to urge you not to take my word for it. đź’š
The Covid-19 pandemic shows we must transform the global food system
Our global, profit-driven, meat-centered food system is making us sick. We need a radical rethink.
“The principal driver of zoonotic diseases is industrial animal agriculture, breeding diseases like swine flu and avian flu on hellish factory farms, and contributing to antibiotic resistance and climate change, both of which exacerbate the problem. Individually, we must stop eating animal products. Collectively, we must transform the global food system and work toward ending animal agriculture.”
Our Cruel Treatment of Animals Led to the Coronavirus
The conditions that lead to the emergence of new infectious diseases are the same ones that inflict horrific harms on animals.
“The coronavirus arose in animals and jumped the species barrier. Most – and some believe all – infectious diseases are of this type (zoonotic). Their emergence is a result of the very conditions that also inflict horrific harm on animals – being kept in confined conditions and then butchered. Simply put, the coronavirus pandemic is a result of our gross maltreatment of animals.”
Surely the link between abusing animals and the world's health is now clear
“Diseases have always jumped species, but the Covid-19 pandemic may be a sign of an ominous acceleration. If antibiotic resistance continues to grow, we may look back on the deaths of the coronavirus pandemic of 2020, and say: 'Really? Was that all?' Antibiotic use in the intensive and unfathomably cruel production of meat is as pernicious. I am not a vegan. If changing facts changed minds, I should become one – as should you, in all likelihood.”
I'm pleased that I played a tiny part in the content of this piece, through a mutual friend.
The meat we eat is a pandemic risk, too
“If you actually want to create global pandemics, then build factory farms.”
“When we overcrowd animals by the thousands, in cramped football-field-size sheds, to lie beak to beak or snout to snout, and there’s stress crippling their immune systems, and there’s ammonia from the decomposing waste burning their lungs, and there’s a lack of fresh air and sunlight — put all these factors together and you have a perfect-storm environment for the emergence and spread of disease.”
