The shocking scale of the global pandemic is forcing the world to search for the origins of Covid-19. There is a dawning realization that our systematic abuse of animals, both wild and farmed, plays a key role in the spread of new diseases. And that fixing our broken food system is part of the answer to reducing the risk of future outbreaks.
As the profile of expert scientific opinion continues to rise and regain credibility through the media (The Guardian and LA Times) we are waking up to the well documented risk and predictable threat of zoonotic diseases -– those that jump from animals to humans. The wildlife trade and wet markets in Asia and Africa have provided the perfect conditions for the spread of deadly pathogens such as SARS, HIV, Ebola and possibly Covid-19, thought to have originated in -- or been transmitted through -- a wet market in Wuhan, although the exact origins are still unknown.
And there is more recognition of the multiple studies that show how increasing rates of habitat destruction around the world, that result in more human-animal interactions, are releasing new viruses and bacteria that endanger humans NYT.
But, despite some high-profile commentary in mainstream media such as the NY Times, Time magazine and even the conservative National Review, there is still only limited recognition of the role that industrialized animal agriculture plays in the deadly chain of events that create pandemics.
This pandemic and the Covid-19 virus did not originate in the factory farming system, but intensive animal agriculture, especially chicken and pig operations, has played – and continues to play -- a key role in the spread of avian and other influenzas that are deadly to humans.
It is an all-too-easy deflection of our responsibility to blame cultural food and medicinal traditions in Asia as the cause of the problem and avoid confronting the risk posed by western-style meat production. And it is ironic that the rapid growth of factory farming in China has forced small holder Chinese farmers to expand into farming wild animals for food and medicine and that this incursion into natural habitats helps release new pathogens The Guardian.
The CDC says that three out of four emerging diseases come from animals, most of them wild. And while farmed animals are not usually the cause of new pathogens, they are a key part of and a proven intermediary in the zoonotic transmission cycle that allow emerging diseases to move from wild animals via farmed animals to humans. See graphic in “Charting Our Path” section below. The CDC says the 2009 outbreak of H1N1 “swine flu”, that originated in pigs, killed an estimated 151,000 to 575,000 people globally.
Our addiction to cheap meat ensures that factory farms continue to be ideal incubators for the spread of disease. Animal welfare and farming expert Lewis Bollard of the Open Philanthropy Project, cites new research on these risks from public health scientists Cynthia Schuck and Wladimir Alonso Report.
“They explain how factory farms provide a perfect breeding ground for highly pathogenic viruses: a high density of genetically uniform animals, suffering immunosuppression induced by chronic stress, living on top of their own waste without sunlight or fresh air. They also explore how factory farms’ abuse of antibiotics is hastening a post-antibiotic era, where bacteria could be as deadly as viruses,” Bollard says.
Viruses in these conditions can mutate and combine with other viruses, become deadly to humans and jump the species barrier in a spillover event. While these events are rare, if we perpetuate the ideal cross over conditions of wet markets, habitat destruction and factory farms, it is just a matter of time before the next deadly zoonotic pathogen emerges.
While the factory farm/slaughter food chain in the West faces tighter regulations than wet markets, it is not disease-proof. Zoonotic diseases aside, our current food system still manages to produce common food borne pathogens including salmonella and E. coli on a regular basis. These types of pathogens sicken 48 million, hospitalize 128,000 and kill more than 3,000 Americans annually according to the CDC.