During the last month the COVID-19 outbreak started a series of misinformative campaigns from many vegan activists, who blame the consumption of non-humans as its only real cause.

Although – as we are going to explain – farms do constitute optimal places for the mutation and proliferation of viruses, they are not the only cause.

Activists are lingering on these campaigns (e.g. the “Eating animals = Coronavirus” slogan) without analysing the entire situation. A world without viruses will never exist; viruses will always be with us, with or without animal farms. Furthermore, exploiting the SARS-COV-2 outbreak to “raise awareness of animal exploitation” is a misleading approach because it doesn’t focus on a fair antispeciesist message (e.g. “Should humans stop eating animals just because animal farming causes viruses or because humans have no right to exploit and eat other individuals’ bodies?”).

What is a virus?

Viruses are microscopical and acellular infectious agents, constituted by a core of nucleic acids equipped with an external protein coating (called capsid), that are able to replicate exclusively within a host cell (be it animal, plant, or bacterial). They can be defined as parasites, as they necessarily need to exploit a host. Viruses are in a grey area between what’s considered life and “non-life”: the fact that they’re not actually “alive” prevents us from “killing” them using antibiotics, although certain strains can be inhibited with antiviral drugs.

Having evolved interconnectedly with the very life forms they infest, there exist countless types of viruses. Each of them acts differently within the host, but unlike what most people think, only a small % of viruses tend to cause damage or disease in the host organism(s).

Friends, not enemies.

As it is now evident to the scientific community, not all viruses are enemies to be eradicated, but rather, they are important agents of “innovation” which have facilitated and largely caused the evolution of multicellular organisms (including animals) through integration of new pieces of viral genetic code and/or internal rearrangements in the host’s DNA. It has even been noted that some viruses are able to protect the host organism from other, more harmful, viral infections. Simply put, viruses have been, and continue to be, extremely useful; we wouldn’t be here without them!

“Retroviruses contributed to about half, possibly two-thirds, of our genomic sequences and to the evolution of the mammalian placenta. The origin of related retroelements in our genome is being discussed as remnants of ancient retroviral germline infections that became evolutionarily fixed in the genome.”

“Viruses protect against viruses: retroviruses protect a cell against a new infection by a similar virus, designated as ‘superinfection exclusion’ or viral interference.”

“Only a minority of viruses are pathogens; most of them do not cause diseases. On the contrary, they are most important as drivers of evolution, as transmitters of genetic material, as innovative agents.”

References at the end of the article.

A world without viruses is utopistic.

Viruses have been around for many millions of years and have literally colonised any possible environment: wherever there is life there are viruses that have adapted to / selected that particular life form to infest and exploit. They have always existed and will continue to do so, rapidly changing and evolving over time; it is impossible and utopian to think of a world without viruses.

Meat and viruses: is there a connection?

It is often thought that viral infections can be caused by the human consumption and dismemberment of other animals, and therefore that an entirely plant-based diet can guarantee full safety in this regard. In reality, it is not quite so. We certainly cannot deny that the conditions in which non-human animals are raised in our hyper-consumerist society also increase the risk of spontaneous mutation or generalised contagion. However, as we reiterated earlier, viruses have always existed and will always exist. In addition to that, our current lifestyle involves the presence of inhabited centres with a very high density of individuals per km², thus facilitating the possible spread of pathogens. Eliminating farms and eradicating speciesism, however desirable and necessary, cannot guarantee an absence of epidemics.

Genetic engineering and new viruses.

In recent years, due to the uncontrolled explosion of biotechnology and genetic engineering, also dictated by economic and anthropocentric interests, it has been possible to study and manipulate existing viruses with the aim of creating new, potentially useful ones. This is usually done by inserting recombinant genes originally not present in a particular animal species, or by removing specific genes. The aim can be the treatment of sick people, as well as the creation of deliberately-designed-to-get-sick non-human animals (e.g. knock-in mice or so called “oncomice”) on which drugs can then be tested in research laboratories.

It is inevitable that some of these engineered viruses can escape human control, even with disastrous effects, giving rise to more aggressive infectious phenomena for which humanity has no immune defense. It is these manipulated viral strains that we must fear the most, and not those already present in nature for which we have long had an antibody memory.

Being vegan doesn’t mean being immune to everything.

Within the vegan community it is not infrequent to hear pro-vegan slogans claiming that being vegan makes people immune to any disease. In reality, it is an erroneous, reductionist, and misleading idea, which does not take into account an infinite number of variables, and which, above all, runs the risk of blaming all those people who, although following a “vegan lifestyle”, still end up getting sick.

It’s irrelevant to the cause.

Many groups and individuals of the antispeciesist movement, groups and individuals are very often used to taking advantage of anthropocentric questions in order to intensify the vegan/antispeciesist credibility – depreciating their truly good intentions – and turning them into a vegan propaganda of misinformation.

The antispeciesist theory, in our opinion, shouldn’t concern many of the issues that animal rights activists frequently use to sensitise the rest of the population. Especially frequent among these, are health or environmental issues. If we assume that these arguments may act as “hooks” to bring people to consider veganism, we also risk, as a movement, to lose the main focus of the antispeciesist fight, which is dismantling the system of dominion and power.

Even though there is much to say and discuss in regards to how other social constructs are linked to speciesism, antispeciesism has nothing to do with health and environmentalism; in fact, we could consider environmentalism as a direct consequence of antispeciesism. Manipulating anthropocentric issues, as the Coronavirus one, produces campaigns based on misinformation, and runs the risk of being a counter-productive strategy, causing a loss of credibility for this movement; a decline that, unfortunately, has started many years ago.

As antispeciesists, we are consistently anti-oppression. However, we believe in truly informative campaigns, rejecting all those that are manipulative, based on misinformation, and that don’t let us convey a clear antispeciesist message to the society.

References:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6433886/

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/14666532/

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3512416/