Pandemics and Zootonic Diseases

Ga Maleven

Animal agriculture has many issues surrounding it, from the cruelty in meat, dairy, and eggs, to the planetary destruction it causes. But another issue that arises is health. Not only is consuming animal products detrimental to our health causing numerous diseases from cancer, diabetes, to the sole cause of cardiovascular disease, but it also creates deadly contagious diseases.

Animal agriculture, fur farms, and other industries that depend on intense breeding of animals in large numbers, whether in tiny cages or in open feedlots creates pathogens. Contagious viruses and bacteria that passes on between the animals. With the stress, feces, poor living conditions, etc. animals endure in animal agriculture, fur farms, mills, etc. bacteria grows rapidly, and the close living quarters allows the bacteria and viruses to quickly, and easily, spread.

In order to suppress the diseases animals in animal agriculture, fur farms, etc. are given antibiotics. A lot of them. In fact, about 80% of all antibiotics created are given to livestock. Giving the animals all these antibiotics while still forcing them to live in deplorable conditions and so many tightly together keeps the viruses and bacteria growing and exposed to the antibiotics. This in turn forces the diseases to mutate and grow. And they have been mutating so much many are no antibiotic resistant, meaning antibiotics no longer can kill them.

Humans are natural frugivores, so we have stomach acidity already not designed to kill diseases within rotten flesh, nor handle all the feces, blood, and urine that is found in all flesh, milk, and eggs. When consuming flesh or coming in contact with animals, whether their dead flesh or feces, that is infected with these diseases, our weak immune systems cannot fight it. In fact, consuming animal products directly weakens our immune systems allowing cancer and other diseases to take over, as well as allow zootonic diseases easy access.

In the last 120 years, every single pandemic recorded has been caused from direct animal flesh consumption by humans. Not just from eating “exotic” animals, such as bats and camels, but most from the designated “food” animals, such as bovines, pigs, and chickens. Most pandemics before 1900 are also from consuming animals.

Every year an estimated 2.2 million humans die from animal borne diseases that originated from consuming animals. These include the ever mutating diseases in current factory farms and mills, as well as diseases that have transferred to humans from animals some centuries ago.

During the Roman Empire several pandemics wiped out thousands of humans. While we don’t know the exact virus or bacteria responsible for these, the symptoms are all similar to various flus and measles. Measles is a bovine disease, while flu originates often from birds, but also swine flu is a common culprit.

Chicken Pox, Mad Cow Disease, Tuberculosis, SARS, MERS, Ecoli,Hendra Virus, and many other diseases have transfered from animals to humans due to the consumption of their flesh or secretions. And while some diseases that transfer may not be deadly at first, thanks to the antibiotics they are mutating to become even deadlier. In fact, a strand of bird flu is being monitored that if it continues to evolve in animal agriculture it will wipe out half the human population.

On fur farms, mills, etc. animals may not be eaten, but the close quarters and poor living conditions are still allowing diseases to mutate and grow, and cases of humans getting these diseases and dying from them are on the rise.

Recent investigations show the rapid mutation of these diseases and how many animals being sold as flesh are infected.

Animal agriculture pays millions to keep the diseases hidden, but when the facts do get out, such as what happened with COVID-19, it makes the public aware of how often these pandemics are happening. Sadly, most still don’t accept that eating animals does this to us, insisting the disease came from a bat when studies have shown COVID-19 is closely related to SARS, a pig borne disease. Animal agriculture is desperate to keep the facts silent, and when diseased animals are found out, they are mass killed, often buried alive and/or set on fire. Usually, the diseases are not discovered until after their flesh is sold, resulting in recalls, or pandemic outbreaks.

The best way to stop these pandemics is with prevention, and the only way to prevent them is by eating a plant-based diet. Not only is eating animals causing these diseases, but destroying the forests in order to keep farming animals is bringing diseases long lost to us back from “extinction,” creating the next pandemic.

Far worse is coming. Do you really want to find out how bad it will be?

An excellent read on how pandemics are created is “Bird Flu: A Virus of Our Own Hatching” by Dr. Michael Greger. Another book by this pandemic expert is, “How to Survive a Pandemic.”