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Human-Animal Studies Corner
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The Pandemic's Impacts on Animals:
The Case of the Mink
A Reflection by Dr. Gala Argent, HAS Program Director
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The understanding that viruses spread reciprocally from humans to domesticated animals and vice versa is of course not new. Zoonotic diseases such as bird and swine influenzas have caused devastation in many instances, with the most well-known and severe to date the global 1918 H1N1 influenza pandemic caused by genes of avian origin. Such instances do not typically end well for the domestic animals involved. As recently as early November, 2020, the government of the United Kingdom dealt with two instances of bird flu, a low-pathogenic H5N2 strain and a highly pathenogenic H5N8, by causing 14,000 to be slaughtered.
Similar bird influenzas such as the H5N1, discovered in 1996 and prevalent across Asia and Africa, have plagued the poultry industry. More than 240 million birds—including chickens, ducks, turkeys and geese—have either died from that virus or were slaughtered in an effort to stop it from spreading. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, H5N1 has caused over 700 infections in humans worldwide and the mortality rate of 60% is high for humans.
Transmission of bird influenzas to humans usually occur with direct or close contact with infected birds. The confined and unsanitary conditions in which farmed-animal production takes place, the stress of the situation on the animals that lowers their immunity, and the close contact between these animals and the farm workers creates a perfect environment enabling such animal-to-human transmission. Although rare, the viruses then move on to be passed through human-to-human channels. What concerns health officials is the very serious likelihood of such viruses mutating within the animals, becoming through those mutations more easily transmissible between humans, and then being passed to humans. This potential is exactly what spurred concern when both mink and the humans working on mink farms became ill with COVID-19 this year.
The first cases of coronavirus in mink were noted in spring in Europe. Scientists noticed the first spillover of COVID-19 from humans to mink, and mink to human, in April 2020 in the Netherlands. Since that time similar instances have been found in Denmark, Spain, Italy, the USA, Sweden, Greece, and most recently, Poland. With regard to these infections, according the The Lancet: Infection Diseases, the concern has been the possibility of the virus within the mink who had been infected by humans being passed back to humans after mutating in ways that might render human vaccines under development useless. Furthermore, other animals farmed by their fur such as foxes and raccoon dogs may infect humans with coronaviruses, and presumably the potential for such mutations exist with them as well. Although it is unclear whether the virus had been passed from humans to the mink or vice versa, in July, Spain culled nearly 100,000 farmed mink at one farm alone after seven staff members and 87% of the animals tested positive for the coronavirus. (The scope of that slaughter at one farm alone is simply unfathomable.) By that time, over one million mink had been slaughtered in the Netherlands, and that figure has grown worldwide since that time.
Animal protection advocates are spotlighting the spread of COVID-19 within captive mink populations to (again) call for the ending of fur farming. Dr. Joanna Swabe, of Human Society International, said, “In addition to fur factory farming being inherently cruel, the potential for zoonotic disease spread, and for mink fur farms in particular to act as reservoirs for coronaviruses, incubating pathogens transmissible to humans, is an unavoidably compelling reason for the world to call time on fur farming.”
Some governments are heeding that call. Fur farming is already banned in several countries, including the UK, Austria, Croatia, Czechia, Luxembourg and Belgium. In other countries, such as Germany and Switzerland, it highly regulated. France has announced a fur farming ban to be completed by 2025, as has the Dutch parliament, with a phase out by 2024 (recently changed to 2022), Israel has announced it will ban the fur trade, and a bill banning fur farming is making its way through the Polish parliament.
The case of the COVID-19/mink/human connection highlights not only another instance of the unnecessary cruelties and deaths caused by the fur farming trade, but also our shared continuities and deep interconnectedness with other animals. If the trend to do away with fur farming holds, perhaps we might view this positively, as an instance of human awakening brought about by COVID-19. I would like to think so. But whether this collective human decision shows actual concern for the suffering of these animals or mere fretfulness and alarm aimed at human self-preservation, we’ll take it—for the animals.
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Preventing Future Pandemics Act of 2020
A Reflection by Bee Friedlander- ASI Board Member
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The bill prohibits the import, export, purchase or sale of live wild animals in the U.S. for human consumption as food or medicine. It “establishes measures to address global public health risks posed by wildlife markets” according to the legislative summary.
The bill’s language is specific and detailed. It approaches the issue using a variety of tools available to the federal government. It promotes both inter-agency and international cooperation. It utilizes both a carrot and stick approach. It relies on science. Some key provisions:
· States that U.S. policy is “to facilitate international cooperation by working with international partners and through intergovernmental, international, and nongovernmental organizations” and calls for the promotion of the One Health paradigm, an approach whose goal is achieving optimal health by recognizing the interconnection between people, animals, plants, and their shared environment
· Requires the Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) to commission a study by the National Academy of Sciences, to determine the role wildlife markets play in pandemics
· Mandates the Secretary of State, in cooperation with the Secretaries of HHS and the Administrator of U.S Agency for International Development (USAID), to monitor, investigate and report on compliance by other governments and authorizes President to impose various economic and political sanctions
· Tasks USAID with (and provides funding to) develop with US institutions of higher education and NGOs, “approaches focused on safe, sustainable food systems that support and incentivize the replacement of terrestrial wildlife in diets while ensuring that existing wildlife habitat is not encroached upon or destroyed as part of this process.”
· Provides funding for both law enforcement and program personnel for FYs 2021-2030 (including at least 50 USFWS law enforcement attaches to be deployed worldwide);
· Provides criminal sanctions (up to 5 years imprisonment and up to $100,000 fine, or both)
ASI recognizes the importance of engaging with legislators in public policy that impacts animals. We are a member of the Endangered Species Coalition and have been a signatory to a number of letters addressed to elected officials. Earlier this month, we joined in a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi urging her to include the Preventing Future Pandemics Act in the next COVID relief package, or in appropriations legislation to be passed before year end.
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