The narrow focus on reactionary measures against COVID-19 seems to hinder direct conversations about disease risk generally and misses the overarching problem: The connection between zoonotic disease and the human treatment of animals. As Jonathan Safran Foer and Aaron S Gross candidly described it : “We are preoccupied with the production of face masks, but we appear unconcerned with the farms.
A week ago, Dr. Dhont wrote to me after he'd read an essay titled
"What the COVID-19 Crisis Is Telling Humanity," noting that I might be
interested in new research on the public understanding of zoonotic disease
risk and whether people recognize the risks from animal agriculture. He was
referring to a piece called "The role of meat appetite in willfully
disregarding factory farming as a pandemic catalyst risk," published by
himself, Jared Piazza, and Gordon Hodson in the journal Appetite. 1,2 We
agreed to write an essay about this seminal research.
COVID-19 is a once-in-a-century pandemic that has killed scores of people,
incapacitated economies, education, and travel, plus severely disrupted
social life globally. Although scientists forewarned about the imminence of
global pandemics such as COVID-19, humanity collectively failed to dodge its
arrival. Sensibly, governments deployed a range of tactics to curb the
further spread of the disease, saving human lives. Yet, with the dominant
focus on how to be prepared and respond once pandemics hit, surprisingly few
conversations seriously discuss prevention tactics.
Please read the
ENTIRE ARTICLE
HERE (PDF)
Number of animals killed in the world by the fishing, meat, dairy and egg industries, since you opened this webpage.
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