All recent pandemics have one thing in common: They are all transmitted by animals. They are zoonotic infections.
Nonetheless, animals are not ultimately responsible for causing these diseases. They didn’t throw COVID-19 over the backyard fence to attack humans. By saying that this pandemic is “animal-related,” we mean that these diseases are caused by how society raises, harvests, and eats animals.
We can avoid the next pandemic by reducing animal product demand as part of a comprehensive policy strategy. Fortunately, an effective approach need not imply government telling people what they should or should not eat.
Plant-based diets have been proven to have numerous health benefits. An effective approach for government policy might be to support those already attempting to make dietary changes.
Food production and zoonosis
Many independent scientists are beginning to recognize that many of the world’s pandemics originate in the animal and agricultural sectors. An earlier UN report expressed a similar concern.
The UN outlined some potential ways to improve health governance concerning food production in its report entitled Preventing the Next Pandemic: Zoonotic diseases and how to break the chain of translocation.
In addition to scientific inquiry into the environmental dimensions of zoonotic diseases, stronger biosecurity measures can be developed and implemented. Several policy measures are suggested (including strengthening wildlife health services) alongside enhanced capacity for monitoring and regulating the food production process.
Furthermore, the report calls for states to reduce their food consumption of animal protein. People may not associate our current pandemic with the western diet or agricultural sector, so reducing the demand for meat is not something we typically hear considered as a policy option.
Pandemic origins
WHO found a link between early cases of COVID-19 and markets in China dealing with wild animals. The average global consumer does not shop for pangolins or bats, which are suspected of contaminating crops. This pandemic, however, has deeper roots that are more complex.
The animal husbandry industrial production chain has been the source of many earlier viruses.
- A public health outbreak of Bovine spongiform encephalopathy (mad cow disease) emerged in the United Kingdom in the 1980s, as did its human equivalent, Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease.
- Chicken factories in China were the source of bird flu (H5N1) in 1997.
- A strain of swine flu (H1N1) was detected in 2009 on a farm in Mexico and North Carolina in the United States.
- Recent reports have identified COVID-19 strains on farms in Denmark that raise minks for fur coats.
Some researchers believe that preventing pandemics from spreading will require rising demand for meat and dairy, including Swedish chief physician Dr Björn Olsen.
It has been almost ten years since Olsen, known for being an early critic of his government’s COVID-19 response, has issued another early warning that has been in books and articles for the past ten years. In a recent Swedish interview, Olsen says most pandemic viruses originated where humans and animals meet, and raising billions of animals will have consequences.
Think about it in reverse: there has been no plant-related pandemic in human history.
An effective policy strategy includes strengthening regulatory and monitoring capacity, but societies can also reduce pandemic risks by replacing animal-based foods with plant-based ones. According to Olsen, politicians are not paying enough attention to the link between animal protein consumption and pandemics.
A plant-based diet should be the policy
Politicians might not see plant-based diets as a viable policy option since they require individuals to change their behaviour, and some believe governments should not try to impose dietary choices on their citizens. However, there are good reasons to believe that people are already willing to switch to a plant-based diet.
According to a recent UN survey, approximately 30% of the world’s population supports plant-based diets as a climate policy.
Guide to healthy eating
The government should also consider implementing its food guide and increasing access to plant-based foods, particularly for low-income, rural residents. We need to move towards subsidizing healthy food.
Environmental and health effects of diet are interrelated. Moreover, there is a clear link between animal products and zoonotic diseases, making it even more important for policymakers to support people who want to shift to a plant-based diet.
A new pandemic could strike at any moment, experts warn. Since the SARS epidemic in 2003, outbreaks of zoonotic infections have occurred more frequently. Another pandemic will not only occur but shortly.
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