(article) When Animals Suffer, So Do We

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When Animals Suffer, So Do We

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/11/AR2006041101511.\

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By Kelly Overton Wednesday, April 12, 2006; Page A17

 

Do the animal rights nuts know something we don't?

 

As we observe the growing number of avian flu cases worldwide, bide time until

the eventual large-scale outbreak of mad cow disease in the United States and

hope what the world experienced in 2004 wasn't just a dress rehearsal for SARS,

the time has come to reconsider humanity's treatment of nonhuman animals -- if

only for the repercussions to our own health. In past decades

we have removed animals from pastures, sunshine and fresh air to stack them on

top of each other in petri-dish-like buildings. Our health is being put at risk

by our demand for low food prices. In the past decade consumers have chosen low

prices over quality in the products and services we purchase -- but animals

aren't products that can be endlessly manipulated for lower food costs. As a

society it is time to ask ourselves if we are willing to trade our health and

the health of our land, air and water in return for cheap milk, eggs and meat.

Meanwhile, the change from a nation whose food was once supplied by thousands of

small to medium-size farms spread across the country to a nation now dependent

on just a few factory farms in specific areas is inviting disaster. This new

concentration of meat and food production in specific geographic corridors

allows for one incident of accidental contamination, sabotage or terrorist

activity to cripple our food supply.

Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, or CJD, the human version of bovine spongiform

encephalopathy (mad cow disease), can lie dormant for up to 40 years. Once

discovered it is too late -- the disease has proved fatal in every human case to

date. The repercussions to human health from factory farming and habitat

destruction may not be known for decades, or they may immediately fly into our

daily lives via an avian flu pandemic.

It is ironic that animal-borne diseases may very well achieve what human

activism has failed to do -- guarantee nonhuman animals more humane lives by

making animal welfare synonymous with human welfare. Regardless of how our

society arrives at the conclusion, it is time to end one of the most inhumane

and shameful chapters in our nation's history. We humans remain only

one species in what has always been a global ecosystem -- an interlinked web of

life where the health of one species depends on the health of others. Whether

through reckless factory farming, the pollution of waters and the poisoning of

the species within them, or the continued rampant destruction of forests and

nonhuman habitat, our blatant mistreatment of other species for the benefit of

our own is not inviting disaster, it's guaranteeing it. It is time to end the

treatment of God's living creatures as products and to begin treating all life

forms with respect and reverence before the health repercussions to the human

species are irreparable.

 

The writer is executive director of People Protecting Animals and Their

Habitats.