How to prevent a factory farmed pandemic

Future Perfect

Vox Media Podcast Network

Politics, Society & Culture, Philosophy, Tech News, News

4.5 • 622 Ratings

🗓️ 21 October 2020

⏱️ 24 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

What if the next pandemic comes, not from wet markets overseas, but from our own factory farms? Martha Nelson, who studies viruses at the NIH, says we are playing Russian roulette with potentially dangerous influenza strains on our pig farms. In this episode, we explain what makes these giant farms so likely to breed the next pandemic virus — and spread that virus into the world. And then, we look at solutions — from creating a virus-resistant pig, to developing a universal vaccine, to changing the systems we have for raising meat itself. Further listening and reading: Sigal Samuel wrote an in-depth explainer on the pandemic risks of factory farms earlier this year. She’s also written about “wet markets.” The Vox video team also made an explainer video on the same subject. For more on how viruses can spread in the pig population, Martha Nelson has an excellent paper “When Pigs Fly.” The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations wrote a 2013 report on the health risks of factory farming. Sonia Shah’s book Pandemic is a great primer on how pandemic strains arise. We always want to hear from you! Please send comments and questions to [email protected]. Subscribe to Future Perfect on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app to automatically get new episodes of the latest season each week. This podcast is made possible thanks to support from Animal Charity Evaluators. They research and promote the most effective ways to help animals. Featuring: Byrd Pinkerton (@byrdala), podcast producer, Vox Martha Nelson (@swientist), epidemiologist, National Institutes of Health Juergen Richt (@juergenricht), professor of veterinary medicine, Kansas State University Host: Sigal Samuel (@SigalSamuel), staff writer, Vox More to explore: Follow all of Future Perfect’s reporting on the Future of Meat. Subscribe to Vox’s Future Perfect newsletter, which breaks down big, complicated problems the world faces and the most efficient ways to solve them. Follow Us: Vox.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:32.1	daily routines.
0:33.3	Schools shut down by coronavirus might not reopen until fall.
0:37.4	Six and a half million Americans have filed for unemployment benefits in the Schools shut down by coronavirus might not reopen until fall.
0:37.5	Six and a half million Americans have filed for unemployment benefits in the last week.
0:42.3	More than 61,000 people.
0:43.9	Nearly 80,000 people.
0:45.5	Coronavirus deaths in the country passed that 100,000 mark.
0:49.8	Funeral homes have been struggling to cope.
0:53.8	The coronavirus pandemic completely overturned all of our lives.
0:58.0	And as it swept across the globe, people started to wonder where it came from.
1:02.0	I mean, the wet markets...
1:04.0	A situation with wet markets.
1:06.0	The wet markets, where wild animals are sold alongside meat and seafood massively increase the odds of a virus jumping from one species to another.
	...

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