The next epidemic

Scientists have been warning for decades about the range of zoonotic diseases that were occurring around the world, mainly due to excessive and unnecessary demand for animal protein: the link between Ebola, SARS, Zika virus and avian influenza with the animal exploitation industry. Months before the confinement decree – in Spain in March 2020 – scientists warned of the scope of the disease that had come from China. When infections began here and emergencies began to saturate, scientists warned that it was not a simple flu, that the virus was spreading uncontrollably, that it was highly resistant and that it carried with it very serious consequences for public health. All of this necessitated such a shift in the social system and economies that scholars paid little attention to it, even when the COVID-19 pandemic was indisputable evidence. The rest is history.

Just two weeks ago, the main Spanish pig farmers, that is, the organizations that make up the pig industry lobby, asked their partners to take extreme precautions to stop the entry of African swine fever (ASF) into our country.). They have gone so far as to recommend stopping imports of live animals or meat products from areas where outbreaks of this disease have been detected, many of which are in European countries. The business titans – Interprofesional del Porcino de Capa Blanca (Interporc) and the National Association of the Meat Industry of Spain (Anice) – know that neither the traceability of these animals nor the health guarantees of these products can be relied upon. They were selling with a deceptive aspect of well-being and health in Peak time From televisions and on the colorful billboards of shopping malls. What appears as green lawns, free running and pink leather is in fact overcrowding, extreme weather conditions on very long hauls, stress, dirt and inflammation, and aggressive treatment. This is how animals come from or that is where the products derived from their bodies come from.

Pig farmers are deeply concerned about the economic consequences of a massive infection, although not expressing concern about the consequences for public health (in fact, meat business owners have apparently asked that the disease be called “fever” and not “plague”, because the word The latter is less profitable). Although ASF is not a zoonotic disease, that is, it is not contagious to humans, it severely weakens the immune system of pigs, making it easier for them to incubate and develop other diseases that are zoonotic and can infect humans: swine flu, hepatitis E, infection Hantavirus, or anthrax. Scientists warn about it, but Spain is still the European country with the highest import of pigs or derivatives of their bodies, and the second country in which the most pigs are raised, exploited, killed and exported. The future will tell us what the consequences will be for human health. Pigs of pigs Pure, with or without the plague: they go to the slaughterhouse.As it is clear, despite the deception of the lobbies, the consumption of red and processed meat causes cancer in humans, and its production is one of the greatest causes of environmental emergencies.

What is really a fact, really exists, is that there was an outbreak of avian influenza on a Spanish mink farm that set off alarm bells all over the world. On these farms, animals live hellish lives and suffer horrific deaths to supply the fur industry, and this diabolical obsolescence in making coats from other people’s furs to be worn is a sign of economic and social status. At the beginning of October, dozens of American minks began to die of hemorrhagic pneumonia on a farm in Caral, a few kilometers from A Coruña. Virologists from all over the world have sounded their alarms, which probably no one will listen to, or it will be too late when they finish. “We are playing with fire,” exclaimed Dutch virologist Marion Koopmans, who has traced the origin of the Covid pandemic to the World Health Organization.

The Xunta de Galicia decided to kill 52,000 minks on that farm in October (a death, no doubt, ended their suffering sooner than if they had been victims to the end of the fur-making process, which keeps them crowded in cages, sick, zoonotic, and gassing them with monoxide carbon to initiate skinning, which sometimes occurs while animals are still alive). The Franz Weber Foundation has been warning for years that infected birds have access to practically all fur farm facilities and has just requested the immediate closure of the Viver fur farm in Castellón, due to the devastating scientific report published in the European Journal of Infectious Diseases Surveillance, Epidemiology, Prevention and Control.”

The avian influenza virus is highly contagious, the respiratory pathogen is virulent and its transmission is very rapid. If an avian influenza pandemic breaks out, the COVID-19 pandemic will seem like a rehearsal, due to the massive deaths it could cause. The outbreak in Galicia is “very scary”, says virologist Elisa Perez of the Center for Animal Health Research, “We have never seen such great fear in Europe”. This means that after a fear, the next thing could be death. She calls for the closure of all mink farms, as people and organizations advocating animal ethics have long demanded. For one reason or another, or better for both at the same time, this closing has to take place. It will be too late to do that when the next epidemic comes.