AR-News: Please don't eat the animals

[jim robertson]

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/ArticleNews/TPStory/LAC/20030707/COAPES07/TPComment/TopStories

Please don't eat the animals

Eating endangered animals isn't just a moral issue -- it's a threat to 
global health, says bioethicist KERRY BOWMAN

By KERRY BOWMAN
Monday, July 7, 2003 - Page A9


Canada may finally be getting some relief from its latest worrisome 
diseases. SARS is declining in Toronto and, in Alberta, there have been no 
new cases of Creutzfeldt-Jakob -- mad-cow disease. It's time now to ask 
where these diseases are coming from and what can be done to prevent them.

SARS and mad-cow represent what's known as zoonotic infections -- diseases 
transmitted from animals to humans. Researchers believe SARS was spread to 
humans from a cat-like animal, the masked palm civet, regarded as a delicacy 
in southern China where the illness festered for months before going global. 
Mad-cow is transmitted by eating infected cattle.

>From SARS, to West Nile virus, to Ebola fever, humans are catching our 
animal cousins' diseases. In the medical world, we are frequently told that 
the cross-species jump of infections is wildly improbable -- until it 
occurs. Currently, we have had no idea what is coming in the future until we 
get an epidemiological retrospective of what has occurred in the past.

Evidence indicates chimpanzees from central Africa are the original source 
of the HIV/AIDS epidemic, and that transmission was through a simian 
immunodeficiency virus (SIV). The source of human contact is thought to be 
exposure to blood from chimpanzees killed for "bush meat."

The bush-meat crisis -- the slaughter of animals such as chimpanzees, 
gorillas and bonobos for meat -- has increased as logging companies build 
roads deep into formerly unreachable forests, allowing hunters easier access 
to prey. Almost more worrisome than HIV/AIDS is that new research has 
identified other SIVs in other African primate species, raising the 
possibility of more catastrophic epidemics with the increased consumption of 
bush meat.

Ebola, one of the world's deadliest diseases, has killed 114 out of the 128 
humans who contracted it in the latest outbreak in the Congo. Although not 
the primary carrier of Ebola, gorillas are the likely link in the most 
recent outbreak. They succumb to Ebola, and in turn, the virus is passed on 
through the consumption of their meat. In the November, 2002, outbreak 
alone, the disease is estimated to have killed between 600 and 800 Western 
Lowland gorillas. The decimation of the world's great apes and other 
primates can be seen not only in ethical terms and scientific loss, but also 
represents a clear and present danger to global health.

Humans have a long history of catching animal-borne viruses. Of the more 
than 1,700 known viruses, bacteria and other pathogens that infect humans, 
about half come from animals. When our ancestors descended from the trees, 
they picked up parasitic worms from animals on the savannah. When humans 
migrated from the savannah to Europe and Asia, new infections emerged such 
as bubonic plague from rats; gangrene, tetanus and brucellosis, largely from 
eating wild game. When humans began to settle into farming societies, more 
zoonotic illness emerged. Not so long ago, we caught measles from dogs and 
tuberculosis from cows.

So are animal-borne diseases not inevitable? Growing evidence suggests the 
process may be accelerating due to massive demographic changes and 
environmental degradation. In central Africa, the forced relocation of huge 
populations under colonial rule, rapid urbanization, and the logging that 
opened the forest to bush-meat hunters has set the stage for even more 
spread of disease. Add to this mix a very poor public-health infrastructure 
and civil unrest. In Asia, it is not surprising the SARS epidemic came from 
southern China, where the proximity of wild animals -- many shipped in from 
tropical zones -- and domestic animals within human settlements has supplied 
the perfect breeding ground for a new genetically recombined virus. The risk 
is compounded because consumers and animals are often not from similar 
ecosystems and have not co-existed for long periods of time.

Consumption of bush meat in Asia and Africa has gone from occasional 
domestic use to a rapidly growing commercial enterprise. In middle Africa, 
this is largely due to huge Western logging initiatives; in Asia, to growing 
economic power and increased trade with neighbouring countries -- allowing 
many more people to indulge a tradition of eating wildlife dishes called ye 
wei -- literally , "wild taste."

Biodiversity is richest closest to the equator, the very area where 
burgeoning human populations exist -- many living in poverty and extreme 
heat without access to running water, the perfect conditions for viruses to 
fester and emerge as new zoonotic disease. Contemporary global travel 
guarantees that virtually any place on Earth can be reached within 36 hours, 
in many cases, time enough to allow for incubation before symptoms emerge.

The belief has been that developing nations have more urgent priorities than 
conservation of animal species. The false dichotomy is: people or the 
environment. The reality is the two are inseparable; destructive 
environmental practice produces high costs at all levels of development.

How can we prevent a new animal-borne disease from becoming the next 
pandemic? The answers will be found in a weave of environmental protection, 
poverty alleviation and global health initiatives. The often-ignored growing 
inequality in access to basic standards of human health and wellbeing is 
staggering. We now know that this comes at a high price.

Somehow, ethical considerations have not been enough to act. Let us hope the 
threat to global health will be.

University of Toronto bioethicist Kerry Bowman is founder of the Canadian 
Great Ape Alliance.







If Veganism has a prime value, it is simply that life-respecting compassion 
overrides individual issues of custom, convenience, comfort or cuisine.      
     Stanley M. Sapon, PhD

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