The Next Covid-Like Pandemic Could Spring From The US Meat Supply, New Report Finds

Another pandemic could come from the United State, USA Today reported citing findings of Harvard Law School and New York University.?The report examines how humans, livestock and wild animals interact in the states.

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Zoonotic diseases could spark a deadly outbreak

Familiar and terrifying diseases like HIV/AIDS, Ebola, Zika, pandemic flu, and COVID-19 originated in animals, particularly on the African or Asian continents. These zoonotic diseases are often attributed to poor hygiene, lack of government oversight, or unsafe practices in those regions.

While Americans often think "it couldn't happen here," regulations are so loose and interactions so frequent, researchers found, that a virus or another contagious bug could easily jump from animals to people in the U.S., sparking a deadly outbreak, similar to that of COVID-19.

"There really is this false sense of security and unfounded belief that zoonotic disease is something that happens elsewhere," said Ann Linder, one of the report’s lead authors and associate director of policy and research with the Brooks McCormick Jr. Animal Law & Policy Program at Harvard Law School. "In fact, I think we're more vulnerable than ever in many ways."

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But, how?

The report, also led by NYU's Center for Environmental and Animal Protection, highlights several areas of vulnerability, including commercial farms where millions of livestock come into close contact with each other and their handlers; the wild animal trade in which animals are imported with few or no health checks; and the fur trade in which minks and other animals are bred for their coats, with little safety oversight.

"Through globalization, we've erased seas and mountains and other natural boundaries of disease," Ann Linder said, adding, "We're mixing animals and pathogens across different continents and circulating at a dizzying and ever-increasing pace."

About 220 million live wild animals are imported in the US every year for pets and other purposes, Ann Linder said, explaining that if someone wants to bring a dog or cat into the country, there's a process, "but if I'm a wildlife importer and I want to bring in 100 wild mammals from South America, I can do that with very little regulation of any kind."

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Workers on pig and poultry farms are particularly vulnerable because of a lack of regulations protecting them, said Delcianna Winders, an associate professor of law and director of the Animal Law and Policy Institute at Vermont Law and Graduate School in Royalton.

"There is virtually no regulation of on-farm raising of animals. There's limited regulation of the slaughterhouse but it is extremely inadequate and it's getting worse," said Winders, who was not involved in the report, but researches a similar area. "Right now, the federal government is deregulating slaughter, rather than increasing oversight."

Because the mink and larger fur industry does not produce food, it is even less regulated, Linder said.

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What industry's experts say

However, the experts of the said industry were quick to give a rebuttal, defending safety of their practices.

“According to the CDC, the likelihood of spreading an avian disease to a human in the United States is extremely rare,” Ashley Peterson, National Chicken Council senior vice president of scientific and regulatory affairs, said in an emailed statement.

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