- Since the outbreak of COVID-19,
there has been endless talk about how we can ensure
that something like it never happens again.
And I don't know the answer to that problem;
I don't know how we can ensure that.
But I do know how to ensure the exact opposite:
I do know how we can ensure
that another devastating pandemic does happen again.
The answer? Factory farming.
Almost all of the animal products that we consume,
that's meat, but also dairy and eggs,
comes from factory farms.
Forget the imagery of happy animals
playfully running around in a field somewhere.
These are large and intensive factories
of animal agriculture,
intended to produce food for human consumption
in the most cost-efficient manner possible.
The priority of a factory farm
is not the ethical treatment of its inmates,
is not environmental sustainability,
and is certainly not a provision
of acceptable hygiene standards.
It is simply to produce
as many animal products as possible
for a small cost as possible.
And this focus on profit margins
has devastating consequences, not only ethically,
but also regarding our health
and the likelihood of viral infection.
Factory farms are a fairly recent experiment
in animal agriculture, really only beginning
in the 20th century with the discovery of vitamins
and the development of antibiotics,
allowing animals to be kept indoors in close proximity
and in far greater numbers than previously possible.
This leads to the familiar and horrifying images
of chickens crammed into barns,
pigs and cows in cages so small they can't turn around.
And the slaughter of these animals
to the tune of around 210 million per day,
not including fish, who are slaughtered
in the billions per day.
And we separately know that dangerous viruses
can spread from animals to humans
with catastrophic consequences,
especially when the animals are kept
in these kinds of disgusting conditions.
Ebola, bird flu, swine flu, MERS,
and of course, the coronavirus
thought to have originated from a bat in China,
all have direct links to our treatment
and commodification of animals.
Now, this should be at the very forefront
of the conversation surrounding pandemic prevention,
but fails to even get a mention by mainstream politicians
whose job is ostensibly to identify
the causes of such disasters
and attempt to prevent them from re-occurring,
but who, in practice, fail to even consider the impact
of factory farming on viral infection and public health
despite how undeniably crucial a role it plays
in shaping the biological landscape.
Viruses are parasites, and they're nearly alive.
They have their own DNA or RNA,
but are generally not considered
to be fully-fledged living things
since they can't survive without a host.
A host is simply an organism
whose pre-existing biological material viruses can use
to replicate and increase their population.
So, in order to replicate in this manner,
viruses have to infect the cells of other living beings
who serve as the virus' host,
and this host, be it a pig, or a bird,
or, indeed, a human, carries the virus
and provides it with the biological material
necessary for its survival and replication.
Now, here's the thing:
since viruses can only replicate inside a host,
to survive, they need to find new hosts to infect
before the original host dies.
If the host dies, the virus dies with it,
unless the virus has managed to find
a new host to jump to before this happens.
So, if a virus is present within an animal on a farm,
it will jump from that animal to a neighboring animal
anytime that it gets the chance to.
But as a virus replicates, it sometimes mutates.
When the virus copies itself,
the copy is an imperfect one,
with some kind of small difference.
Now, these mutations are random,
and most don't really make a difference
to the virus' ability to survive.
Some lessened this ability. But sometimes,
a mutation occurs that gives the virus
a new ability that aids its survival,
such as, for example, the ability to transmit,
not just from one animal to another,
but from one species of animal to another.
And when this kind of transmission occurs
specifically from a non-human animal to human beings,
it's called a zoonotic disease,
a term you'll surely be quite familiar with
given recent events.
This kind of virus, a zoonotic virus,
is what we should be particularly scared about.
COVID-19, believed to have come from bats,
is an example of a zoonotic disease,
as is bird flu, Ebola, malaria, and swine flu.
So, in order for a virus within animals
to become a threat to human beings,
this virus would need to mutate into one
with an ability to infect a human beings.
Remember, these mutations
during viral replication are random.
Viruses aren't trying to infect humans,
they're not conscious,
they just mutate randomly and may, by chance,
happen to develop an ability to jump to humans.
Crucially, the more opportunity a virus has to replicate,
the more random mutations can occur,
and the higher the probability that one of them, by chance,
will produce a virus that can infect human beings.
So, if an animal-based virus is in a position
to replicate rapidly and widely,
the risk of it becoming a zoonotic virus
is astronomically increased.
As you should now have begun to realize,
factory farms are breeding grounds for zoonotic diseases.
If you were looking for the easiest possible way
to vastly increase the probability
of a virus developing zoonotic abilities,
if you were trying to create the most dangerous conditions
for viral replication within animals,
you couldn't wish for something more suitable
than a modern factory farm.
As Josh Balk has said, whilst our governments
are telling us to keep our distance
and avoid large crowds to prevent viral transmission,
we're simultaneously cramming tens of thousands of animals
wall-to-wall inside giant factories,
and failing to recognize the risks,
or at least choosing to ignore them.
Tens of billions of animals each year
kept in excruciatingly close proximity,
with an ability to share diseases with each other
every single day.
By keeping these animals in such confinement,
such proximity, such high numbers,
and, indeed, such inexcusably disgusting
and unhygienic conditions,
we create the perfect space for a viral infection
to replicate at unstoppable speed
and thereby vastly increasing the risk
that it will mutate into one with zoonotic tendencies.
And this would be bad enough if we weren't then
shipping these animals around the world
to come into contact with vast numbers of new animals
on a regular basis, creating new collaborative strains
of the viruses they're carrying, which we are.
And it's not just viral disease
that we should be worried about,
but also bacterial disease.
I haven't even yet mentioned
the problem of antibiotic resistance,
described by the World Health Organization
as one of the biggest threats to global health,
with the potential to kill more people than cancer by 2050,
and already killing 700,000 people per year.
We use antibiotics to treat
all kinds of bacterial infections.
They really do serve as a medical miracle.
But just like viruses,
bacteria also mutate when they replicate.
And if they mutate to become resistant to our antibiotics,
these antibiotics will no longer work
and we will no longer be able to treat
perhaps even some of the most basic diseases
that currently befall human beings.
Antibiotic resistance is an unbelievably
terrifying development that could ruin us,
medically speaking, if we're not careful.
Most people know that antibiotic resistance
is partly due to doctors overprescribing them to patients.
But did you know that the majority
of antibiotics sold are consumed,
not by humans, but by farmed animals?
That's right,
more animals are using antibiotics than humans are.
So this antibiotic resistance, which could lead
to an onslaught of untreatable human diseases,
is being propelled by factory farming.
And this might sound crazy,
but it shouldn't actually be too surprising
if you think about it,
considering the inconceivably poor
and unhygienic conditions
in which these animals are kept.
Of course they're being stuffed full of antibiotics.
But despite the immeasurable risk
posed by antibiotic resistance,
nobody wants to talk about the fact
that one of its driving causes
is our inability to give up bacon and cheese.
The truth isn't always popular,
but it remains true, regardless.
And it's about time we started taking this
very, very seriously.
Jane Goodall has said, "COVID-19 is a wake up call.
If we just carry on with business as usual,
that will lead to the end of our species' tenure
on planet Earth."
Now, given how disgustingly we treat them,
I'm sure that the end of our species
is something that the animals we torture
in factory farms would be glad to see,
but it probably doesn't sound too appealing to you.
And if it doesn't, the answer may be
as simple as changing our diet.
We have a very simple choice here.
We either fund the industry posing one of the biggest
public health risks possible to imagine,
or we don't.
And all you have to do to bring about the end
of this nightmarish industry is eat something else.
Choose something else on the menu.
I promise you, your bacon sandwich is not worth
that which we've caught a solemn glimpse of with COVID-19.
Our addiction to the taste of these products
is no excuse for the treatment of the animals
we procure them from,
or the risk to public health that this poses.
Remember, these farms don't exist
for some noble or valuable reason.
They're not there to help with our national security,
or prop up our education system,
or to help us build infrastructure, or something.
They've there so that we can have a sausage roll.
A sausage roll!
The choice is yours:
pay for this to continue, or don't.
A moment's reflection should reveal
that the choice is an obvious one.
For help going vegan,
see the link in the description.
(pensive music)