The United States is home to an enormous array of animal industries — including industrial agriculture, fur farming and the exotic pet trade — that pose a significant risk of creating infectious disease outbreaks in humans, according to a new report by experts at Harvard Law School and New York University.
Moreover, the nation “has no comprehensive strategy” to mitigate the dangers posed by these practices, many of which operate with little regulation and out of public view, the authors concluded.
“The risk is staggering, because our use of animals is staggering,” said Ann Linder, the report’s lead author and an associate director at Harvard’s animal law and policy program.
“And we don’t even really understand where that risk is.”Zoonotic diseases, or those that spread from animals to humans, account for roughly 60 percent of all known infectious diseases and 75 percent of new and emerging ones, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Although the exact origins of the Covid-19 pandemic remain murky, the possibility that the coronavirus might have first jumped into humans at a live animal market in Wuhan, China, prompted calls to shut down these so-called wet markets, especially in Asia.
Persons:
“, ”, Ann Linder
Organizations:
Harvard Law School, New York University, Centers for Disease Control
Locations:
States, Wuhan, China, Asia