From farm animals to exotic pets, the U.S. has a wide range of animal industries. Stronger oversight could help prevent future pandemics, a new report says.
Photo by Mark Stenick, courtesy Pexels
The COVID-19 pandemic underscored that America is not immune to a nationwide health emergency from infectious disease. A new report puts the country on alert for another potential pandemic, this time from its own animal industry.
The U.S. has a wide range of animal industries, from hunting and fur farming to backyard chickens and exotic pets, accounting for hundreds of millions of animals. Those industries are far less regulated than they should be, however, leaving the public at risk from potentially harmful pathogens, according to the July report from researchers at Harvard and New York universities.
“The next pandemic may be far worse and might happen sooner than we think,” Ann Linder, associate director of policy and research at Harvard’s Brooks McCormick Jr. Animal Law and Policy Program, said in a news release. “The stakes are simply too high for the problem to be ignored.”
The U.S. is also home to live animal markets where humans come into close contact with a variety of species potentially carrying disease, the report noted. A 2015 study of Minneapolis animal markets found that 65% of workers were positive for influenza with swine origins. A 12-year-old boy who visited one of the markets developed respiratory illness that was confirmed as a transmission from swine to human.
“While zoonotic risks cannot be eliminated, they can be managed and reduced in ways that make all of us safer,” Dale Jamieson, PhD, MA, co-author of the report and director of New York University’s Center for Environmental and Animal Protection, said in the release. “The risks that these markets present have been ignored or downplayed for far too long.”
Meanwhile, the U.S. exotic pet trade is a $12 billion industry.
Animals such as monkeys and monitor lizards are sold through legal channels such as pet stores and through criminal markets without health checks or veterinary oversight, the report said.
Tracking the animals is nearly impossible, according to the researchers. For example, prairie dogs sold at U.S. pet stores and swap meets in 2003 caused more than 70 human mpox infections, but even investigators from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention were unable to locate all of the animals sold.
Zoonotic disease outbreaks pose serious threats to vulnerable populations. Low-wage farm workers routinely come in contact with animals, placing them at high risk of infection. Farms also tend to be far from health care services, so getting swift or any health care for them can be difficult.
For more information on “Animal Markets and Zoonotic Disease in the United States,” visit https://animal.law.harvard.edu.
- Copyright The Nation’s Health, American Public Health Association