We just went to a great dinner with the Richmond Vegetarian and Vegan Meetup group and listened to Dr. Aysha Akhtar, a double Board-certified neurologist and public health specialist, speak on how modern animal agriculture is a threat to public health (beyond the fact that it causes heart disease, cancer, diabetes, and stroke). She works for the Office of Counter-Terrorism and Emerging Threats of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), is LCDR in the US Public Health Service and is a Fellow of the Oxford Centre for Animal Ethics. She discussed all the ways in which current agricultural practices put the public at risk. Some of the most frightening points were:

Factory farming provides an excellent medium for the deadliest form of flu viruses (influenza A) to transfer from wild foul to domestic poultry populations, where it can spread rapidly and mutate into increasingly contagious and virulent forms.

Once in a factory farm setting, these viruses can transfer between species, greatly increasing the risk that human workers and consumers are at risk of infection.

Viruses transmitted to swine are especially dangerous because pigs can acquire viruses from many species, and by harboring many different strains of flu they become an extremely good medium for cross mutations and newer, more dangerous strains of the virus.

In the last decade we’ve already seen the Avian flu (H5N1), which was extremely deadly but not very contagious, and the swine flu (H1N1), which was extremely contagious but generally not life threatening. By the way: ever wonder why it was called “swine flu” before the CDC and their buddies the pork industry banded together to quash that label? It emerged in La Guardia, Mexico – home to pig factory farms owned by Smithfield.

It’s now only a matter of time before a new strain of flu emerges that is both highly contagious and deadly, at which point a pandemic (worldwide) outbreak is likely. Dr. Ayasha stated that it is very likely that this flu will originate within factory farms.

Dr. Ayasha also discussed the increasingly severe problem of antibiotic resistant bacteria. She described the current situation of antibiotic resistance as critical, stating that of all the antibiotics in existence only a few are left that are effective, and more need to be discovered as soon as possible to prevent further loss of treatment options for infections. Modern animal agriculture is responsible for 70% of antibiotic use and factory-farmed animals are kept on a diet of antibiotics for the entire duration of their short lives in order for them to survive in the filthy, cramped living conditions they are kept in just long enough to make it to slaughter. This antibiotic-saturated environment is literally driving the adaptation of new resistant bacteria faster than scientists can discover new drugs to keep up. If this trend continues unchecked, we could be looking at a time in the near future that resembles the pre-antibiotic era in which infection is again the leading cause of death .

As you can see, this is some scary stuff that yet again demonstrates just how bad consuming animal products, and thereby supporting factory farming, is for everything. Anyone out there who still clings to the idea that eating animal products is an individual choice, affecting only oneself, should add global disease epidemics to the list of all the other reasons why they are wrong: health care costs, environmental degradation, animal welfare, and global hunger, to name a few.

For more on Dr. Ayasha’s research, be sure to check out her new book Animals and Public Health: Why Treating Animals Better is Critical to Human Welfare. We were really glad we were able to see her speak AND enjoy lots of delicious vegan chili recipes at the potluck, so we’ll definitely be attending more in the future. If you’re local, please join us!