Animalborne Diseases: Global Health Crisis

Huge, corporate-run factory farms have greatly increased the threat of deadly animalborne diseases like bird flu and mad cow disease, which, according to scientists, have the potential to become global pandemics. The cramped, filthy conditions on factory farms—where animals are crammed into warehouses or feedlots by the tens of thousands—lead to the rampant spread of contagious organisms and diseases like salmonella, E. coli, and avian influenza, which can spread to humans who eat the flesh or eggs of infected animals. Animals are fed a steady dose of antibiotics and other drugs in an effort to keep them alive long enough to be slaughtered, which leads to the development of drug-resistant pathogens, or “super-bugs.”

Feed given to today’s farmed animals commonly contains the blood, bone, flesh, and feces of other farmed animals, even though this practice is known to have caused mad cow disease and similar diseases. Mad cow disease has shown up all over the world, and mounting evidence indicates that other species could suffer from their own version of the disease.

Click on the links below to learn more about some of the diseases that can be spread to humans by animals raised for food.

Bird Flu
U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Michael Leavitt called the likelihood of a devastating bird flu pandemic among humans “very high, some say even certain.” According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the World Health Organization, people can catch bird flu by eating undercooked flesh or eggs of infected chickens or turkeys. Read more.

Mad Cow Disease
Recent studies predict that thousands of meat-eaters have already been infected with this brain-destroying disease but just haven’t developed the symptoms yet. Mad cow disease, also called bovine spongiform encephalopathy (literally “cow spongy brain”), is caused by misshapen proteins called “prions” that cannot be destroyed by cooking. A wide variety of other animals besides cows have already developed spongy brain diseases, and because any animal with a brain has the potential to develop a spongy brain, humans who eat any type of flesh are putting themselves at risk of developing a fatal brain-wasting disease. Read more.

Crohn’s Disease
About 500,000 Americans suffer from this agonizing illness.¹ Scientific research indicates that consuming dairy products from cows suffering from Johne’s disease is a leading cause. Read more.

SARS
Thousands of people became sick and many died in 2003 after this respiratory disease jumped from pigs to humans. Read more.

By choosing a diet free of animal products, you can stop supporting the factory farms that lead to the spread of animalborne diseases and dramatically reduce your chances of contracting one of these deadly diseases.

¹ MayoClinic.com, “Crohn’s Disease,” 10 Aug. 2005