Public Health

Explainer

Can Animals Catch Coronavirus? What You Can Do to Protect Them

If you share your home with a companion animal, you might be asking, can animals catch coronavirus? Here's what you need to know to keep your pets COVID-free.

Health•8 min read

Explainer

Coronavirus & Animals: Can Humans Give Animals COVID-19?

Can humans become hosts and infect animals with COVID-19? To answer that question, you need to understand where the novel coronavirus came from.

Health•6 min read

Reported

The Other Pandemic: Avian Flu Is Spreading Around the Globe

As the world continues to battle the coronavirus pandemic, a parallel scenario is unfolding in the avian world. Outbreaks of avian flu have been detected on poultry farms from the…

Health•6 min read

Reported

Live Markets Aren’t Just China’s Problem

Many Americans are quick to blame the pandemic on China’s eating habits while ignoring the issues with their own food system.

Health•5 min read

Explainer

Coronavirus: Did Animal Agriculture Cause COVID-19?

Factory farming poses a serious pandemic risk, which begs the question: Did animal agriculture cause COVID-19?

Health•9 min read

Reported

“We Stand at a Crossroads”: Jane Goodall Joins Call for UN to Address Animals

Advocates are asking the United Nations to consider the role of animals in their COVID-19 recovery policies. They fear the return to 'business as usual' could lead to another deadly…

Health•6 min read

Explainer

Factory Farms Are the Perfect Breeding Grounds for Zoonotic Diseases

Factory farms are filthy and unnatural, housing tens of thousands of animals at a time. These conditions increase the spread of zoonotic diseases from animals to human beings.

Health•8 min read

Reported

Mink Farming’s Pandemic Potential

In Denmark, a new strain of COVID-19 originally found in minks has jumped to humans and could threaten the efficacy of newly developed coronavirus vaccines.

Health•5 min read

Reported

COVID-19 Leads to Early Closure of Dutch Mink Farms

A new ruling by the Dutch government will close all mink farms in the Netherlands by March 2021 in response to burgeoning coronavirus cases.

Health•4 min read

Perspective

To Avoid the Next Pandemic, We Need to Stop Factory Farming

Industrial animal agriculture is exacerbating the risks of zoonotic diseases. Are elected officials ready to dismantle the system that got us into this mess?

Health•4 min read

Investigation

New Mini-Doc Exposes Pork Industry’s “Unseen” Pandemic Risks

The mini-documentary chronicles pigs’ harrowing 700-mile journey across the American southwest, exposing widespread corporate misconduct that threatens public health.

Health•3 min read

Explainer

Wet Markets and the Risk of Transmitting Zoonotic Diseases

Wet markets can be places of profound animal suffering, out of which arise life-threatening diseases like the novel coronavirus. And they exist all over the world.

Health•13 min read

Perspective

VIDEO: How to Prevent the Next Pandemic

Plant-based campaigners Million Dollar Vegan explain the fundamental changes necessary to avoid the next pandemic. Experts warn that if we don’t act now, we may not have another chance to.

Health•1 min read

Perspective

Factory Farming Depends on Scarce Medical Supplies

With the availability of medical masks in such short supply, respirators should be sold only to truly “essential” industries—which excludes factory farming.

Health•7 min read

Perspective

Has Earth’s Most Trafficked Mammal Stopped the World?

Pangolins are the most trafficked mammal on earth, sold for their meat and scales in wildlife markets around the world. The quirky, anteater-like animal is now at the center of…

Health•10 min read

Perspective

To Reduce the Risk of Pandemics, We Must Ban Factory Farms Now

Regulating the factory farming industry is not enough to minimize its risks. A total ban is necessary because it expresses that factory farming is deeply harmful to humans, animals, and…

Health•5 min read

Perspective

The Best Defense Against the Next Pandemic: Your Fork

As long as humans insist on abusing and exploiting animals on factory farms, stronger and deadlier pathogens than the novel coronavirus will emerge from the global food system.

Health•4 min read

Explainer

Coronavirus (COVID-19): What Is It and How Does It Spread?

The latest pandemic COVID-19, is caused by the virus SARS-CoV-2. How does it spread, how did it start, and what do you need to know?

Health•21 min read

Perspective

COVID-19: The Origin Story

With much of the world on lockdown tracking the death toll and flight cancellations, no one is questioning why we are in the midst of the worst global pandemic in…

Health•3 min read

Perspective

A Palate for Pestilence: Ominous Links Between COVID-19 and Industrial Animal Farming

The Chinese government announced it would permanently ban the wildlife trade suspected to be at the center of the COVID-19 pandemic. Will factory farms be next?

Health•9 min read

Perspective

Coronavirus Should Make You Reconsider Eating Meat

The primary cause of zoonotic diseases like coronavirus is not the consumption of wildlife—it’s the consumption of animals, period.

Health•3 min read

Perspective

India Needs to Get Serious About Rabies Prevention

For a country with more free-roaming dogs than the entire population of Australia, India fares poorly in tackling rabies.

Health•3 min read

Perspective

Yet Another Chicken Recall–We Really Shouldn’t Be Surprised

To the executives at Perdue Foods, chickens are vehicles of protein and, more importantly, material investments they expect to turn a profit. As a result, animal welfare standards fall by…

Health•2 min read

Reported

Report: Can We Feed 10 Billion People a Healthy Diet?

To stay below the 2-degree mark, the world needs to halt the conversion of high carbon ecosystems to carbon. That starts with what we eat and it will require a…

Health•5 min read