Ask Berkeley & San Francisco to stop pandemics by divesting funds from animal exploitation
We want to create a world where the public will be protected from pandemics and animals will be free from harm. A coalition of animal rights groups as well as ordinary Americans are urging the cities of Berkeley and San Francisco to become the leaders in this initiative. We are asking the cities to redirect public funds from meat, dairy and eggs to plant-based protein alternatives. Please sign the petition letter below.
To the Berkeley City Council and the San Francisco Board of Supervisors,
The COVID-19 pandemic has upended all of our lives, but alongside the devastation, we have hope. We have hope that the community is coming together to confront this immediate threat. Everyone is making drastic changes and helping neighbors out, all for the greater good.
When the dust settles, we’ll all be talking about how to prevent this pandemic from happening again. Sadly, COVID-19 is only one example in a long history of human-animal interactions leading to pandemic disease. Three out of every four new or emerging infectious diseases in humans come from animals.[1] Humans have long been deforesting and encroaching on ecosystems, where wild animals are reservoirs of novel diseases.[2] The livestock sector, the single largest anthropogenic user of land, is a major driver of deforestation and ecosystem destruction.[3] Additionally, domesticated animals are bridges through which diseases from wild animals can transmit to humans.[4] Human contact with domesticated animals has resulted in many familiar diseases: Influenza viruses from pigs and birds,[5] Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) from bats via domesticated camels,[6] and Salmonella from chickens.[7] Factory farms are providing the ideal conditions for diseases to mutate and spread rapidly.
We don’t know when the next pandemic will hit, but we can be certain that our current system of mass animal exploitation is creating endless opportunities for diseases to jump from animals to humans. Flu viruses are particularly worrisome because they have the potential to infect billions of people in a short time period. H5N1, a strain of bird flu, has a 60% mortality rate for humans. So far it hasn’t easily transmitted from human to human, but it has already jumped from domesticated birds to pigs, causing experts to worry that it could be evolving the ability to spread more easily between mammals.[8] The death toll would be catastrophic.
It’s clear that to prevent future pandemics, governments and institutions need to lead the transition to a kinder, safer food system. One way to start the change today is to end all purchases of animal products with city funds and divest the city from companies that engage in animal exploitation and ecosystem destruction. We hope that all of us will come together to meet this challenge and ensure a brighter future for all.
[1] U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
[2] Cunningham AA, Daszak P, Wood JLN. 2017 One Health, emerging infectious diseases and wildlife: two decades of progress? Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B 372: 20160167.
[3] Livestock’s Long Shadow: Environmental Issues and Options (2006). Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations.
[4] UNEP Frontiers 2016 Report: Emerging Issues of Environmental Concern.
[5] Smith, G., Vijaykrishna, D., Bahl, J. et al. Origins and evolutionary genomics of the 2009 swine-origin H1N1 influenza A epidemic. Nature 459, 1122–1125 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1038/nature08182
[6] Sharif-Yakan, Ahmad, and Souha S. Kanj. "Emergence of MERS-CoV in the Middle East: origins, transmission, treatment, and perspectives." PLoS pathogens 10.12 (2014).
[7] Callaway, T. R., et al. "Gastrointestinal microbial ecology and the safety of our food supply as related to Salmonella." Journal of Animal Science 86.suppl_14 (2008): E163-E172.
[8] Nidom, Chairul A., et al. "Influenza A (H5N1) viruses from pigs, Indonesia." Emerging infectious diseases 16.10 (2010): 1515.