Since the start of the chicken flu outbreak practically three years in the past, state and federal departments of agriculture have had one objective in thoughts: Preserve shopper confidence—as tens of tens of millions of birds are culled and taxpayers bear the price of {industry} bailouts. Each new media report of an contaminated dairy herd, poultry flock, or farm employee comes with the ever-present industry-approved mantra, “Don’t fear, the meat and the milk are secure.”
However this messaging deflects from the manufacturing strategies which have enabled the virus to unfold in methods but to be totally understood. Living proof: on November 19, a California baby with no identified contact with an contaminated animal examined optimistic for avian influenza and, simply seven days earlier than that, a beforehand wholesome teenager in British Columbia was hospitalized in crucial situation with the virus. Investigators are nonetheless not sure how the sufferers acquired it. And with extremely pathogenic avian influenza now infecting pigs, we’re one step nearer to the following pandemic.
Pigs can foster the creation of a extra virulent and transmissible human pathogen as a consequence of their potential to harbor each avian and human influenza viruses. But, officers proceed to dismiss these voicing considerations, calling for extra subdued messaging in order to not foster panic—and time and time once more, the {industry} narrative is refuted. We have been informed the virus would not unfold from cow to cow; that was shortly confirmed false. In June, U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack informed scientific specialists the virus would simply “burn itself out,” solely to have the virus explode in California a number of months later.
We’ve seen any such pondering earlier than. It’s harking back to Stockton Rush’s ominous assurances earlier than the doomed Titan sub made its remaining descent in June 2023. The chief of the personal sea exploration agency, Oceangate, informed his former director of marine operations David Lochridge, “Nobody is dying.”
However, footage of piles of lifeless cows awaiting pickup by rendering vehicles on California roadways has impressed additional questioning. It brings to mild the dire penalties of this unprecedented outbreak. And we now have a proper to know what is occurring.
Our meals methods, closely dominated by concentrated animal feeding operations, facilitate the unfold of pathogens. In crowded and filthy situations, turkeys and chickens (in addition to different farmed animals and human staff) are weak to ailments like chicken flu. In the meantime, our exploitation of animals, each farmed and wild, on a large scale is placing public well being at immense danger. In reality, over 75% of rising human pathogens are zoonotic in origin.
Learn Extra: Is It Time to Fear About Chicken Flu?
After studying the unsavory fact in regards to the {industry}, knowledgeable shoppers are starting to turn into conscientious objectors to the oppression of our fellow animals by avoiding merchandise derived from their exploitation. Regardless of fluctuations in shopper demand, animal agriculture receives billions of {dollars} of public help to make sure its survival within the face of adjusting consumption habits. In reality, 73% of dairy income come from some type of subsidy, in response to a 2015 report made for the dairy {industry}.
When animal welfare or public security considerations make headlines, the {industry} responds with claims that it’s extremely regulated. However simply who’s regulating it?
The US Division of Agriculture (USDA) is understood to be pleasant to agribusiness and is aware of that transparency in regards to the harsh realities of infectious illness outbreaks would diminish shopper belief and threaten its prime directive: To broaden markets for producers. The precise animal welfare and public well being catastrophe is usually dealt with with the callousness and obfuscation emblematic of an {industry} that income from separating moms from their infants to promote cows’ milk to misguided human shoppers.
Veterinarians take an oath to guard animal welfare and public well being and play a key function in mitigating illness threats. However veterinarians have been silenced, threatened, and even fired for not toeing the {industry} line throughout this unprecedented chicken flu outbreak.
Producers at all times declare they deal with their animals properly as a result of wholesome, blissful animals are the most worthwhile. However when those self same animals succumb to infectious ailments, adversarial climate occasions, pure disasters, or predator assaults, they shirk their tasks, and the general public is pressured to foot the invoice.
Most companies would pivot when confronted with recurring disruptions and losses or once they forecast excessive ranges of danger on the horizon—however not animal agriculture. As a substitute of utilizing innovation to shift to accountable and resilient animal-free meals manufacturing, they will depend on authorities handouts, $38 billion a yr in response to a examine by U.C. Berkeley’s Sutardja Middle for Entrepreneurship & Expertise, to allow their present enterprise mannequin.
As a substitute of utilizing know-how to create extra moral meals manufacturing strategies, these developments have introduced us genetic choice, milking robots, vaccines, antibiotics, and hormones, advancing us towards a dystopian future whereby animals are pressured to provide extra meat, milk, and eggs than nature ever supposed.
As this latest, unprecedented multi-species outbreak exhibits, our dependence on mass-produced animal protein has entered us into an ever-escalating arms race towards nature. Our adversaries are pathogenic viruses and micro organism which might be continuously evolving and turning into proof against pharmaceutical interventions.
Each few years, one other main disaster arises within the animal-based protein {industry}. Every time it occurs, the sector appears bewildered and caught, but once more, fully off-guard. Just like the Oceangate group, these multibillion-dollar companies are in denial, ignoring quite a few crimson flags whereas doggedly carrying on with the identical outdated methodology of protein manufacturing. As a substitute of welcoming numerous views and reflecting on their mannequin, they retaliate towards these of us who voice considerations, labeling critics “extremists” out to trigger the {industry} hurt and take away our meals selections.
It’s a enterprise mannequin that incentivizes secrecy and inhumane practices. In 2015, producers and officers struggled to determine methods to exterminate large flocks shortly as an outbreak of chicken flu led to the extermination of an estimated 50 million commercially raised poultry throughout the U.S. Because the COVID-19-induced bottleneck closed slaughterhouses as a consequence of employee sicknesses, pig producers resorted to sealing up buildings, pumping in warmth and steam, and ready hours for his or her extra pigs to die in a course of often known as air flow shutdown plus (VSD+). The American Veterinary Medical Affiliation (AVMA) states that VSD+ needs to be reserved for less than “constrained circumstances,” however when chicken flu struck once more in 2022, the poultry {industry}’s failure to plan led VSD+ to turn into some of the generally used strategies of killing. What’s extra, taxpayers have been pressured to bail out producers whereas those self same billion-dollar firms made report income. It’s a system that rewards companies that act in irresponsible and callous methods towards the animals with a recklessness that additionally jeopardizes public security and the well being of staff.
We have to come to phrases with the truth that our public well being is threatened by an ever-evolving virus that has already contaminated dozens of individuals, with 7% of farm staff exhibiting proof of an infection. Our economic system can also be in danger: 3.5% of the U.S. Gross Home Product is tied to the dairy {industry}’s precarious manufacturing methodology.
Whereas particular person shoppers’ selections are sometimes on the mercy of {industry} advertising and marketing, companies can base their selections on an intensive evaluation of strengths, weaknesses, alternatives, and threats. These depending on animal-based elements should look to the long run and begin changing animal-based with animal-free protein of their merchandise, not just for their monetary safety however for public and planetary well being.
Let’s study from the destiny of different public well being disasters, get out earlier than it’s too late, and finish our dependence on this {industry} earlier than the partitions shut in.
Discussion about this post