Radically change factory farming practices to prevent next pandemic

Scientists have been warning us for years that dense populations of animals in unhealthy environments are a perfect breeding ground for the emergence of new pathogens and the spread of disease. In 2013, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations announced that there is an increased risk of highly virulent swine flu and avian influenza strains due to intensive pig and poultry production [1]. Let us not wait for another pandemic to occur before we act!

We ask you to take direct, serious, concerted, radical action against unhealthy factory farming practices worldwide:

• eliminate overcrowding and extreme confinement systems , such as battery cages;
• ban the usage of antibiotics in healthy animals, which leads to drug-resistant microbes;
• eliminate subsidies for factory farms;
• implement campaigns which inform people about the risks to human health and ecosystems of excessive meat consumption.

More information:
COVID-19 has claimed hundreds of thousands of lives and infected millions.
Since at least 2006, scientists have been warning that wet markets, where live animals are slaughtered and sold for food, are a probable source of emerging infectious diseases [2], but it took a pandemic for us to start addressing the human health risks they pose.
Scientists have also been warning since at least 2007 that intensive, industrial livestock production leads to significant animal and public health risks, including the possible emergence of novel virus strains. [3] & [4]

According to the European Union Environment Commissioner Virginijus Sinkevicius, factory farming played a role in the last pandemic, and there is “strong evidence that the way meat is produced, not only in China, contributed to COVID-19”. [5]
If we continue like this, the emergence of a new pandemic is only a matter of time. [6] & [7]
Let us not wait for another deadly pandemic to occur before we address the dangers of factory farming!
Please sign your name if you agree with this statement to prevent future pandemics.

References
[1] Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, (2013). World Livestock 2013 – Changing disease landscapes. Rome. http://www.fao.org/docrep/019/i3440e/i3440e.pdf
[2] Woo P.C., Lau S.K., Yuen K.Y.. (2006), Infectious diseases emerging from Chinese wet-markets: zoonotic origins of severe respiratory viral infections, Curr Opin Infect Dis. Oct;19(5):401-7. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16940861
[3] Leibler JH1, Otte J, Roland-Holst D, Pfeiffer DU, Soares Magalhaes R, Rushton J, Graham JP, Silbergeld EK. (2009) Industrial food animal production and global health risks: exploring the ecosystems and economics of avian influenza, Ecohealth, Mar;6(1):58-70. doi: 10.1007/s10393-009-0226-0. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19437076
[4] Greger, M. (2007). The Human/Animal Interface: Emergence and Resurgence of Zoonotic Infectious Diseases, Critical Reviews in Microbiology, 33:4, 243-299. https://doi.org/10.1080/10408410701647594
[5] Reuters, EU to step up rules on factory farming, wildlife trading amid pandemic, 17 April 2020. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-eu-wildlife/eu-to-step-up-rules-on-factory-farming-wildlife-trading-amid-pandemic-idUSKBN21Z2M6
[6] TIME, We need to rethink our food system to prevent the next pandemic, Laura Spinney, 13 April 2020, https://time.com/5819801/rethink-industrialized-farming-next-pandemic/
[7] The Guardian, We have to wake up: factory farms are breeding grounds for pandemics. Jonathan Safran Foer & Aaron S Gross, 20 April 2020, https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/apr/20/factory-farms-pandemic-risk-covid-animal-human-health