A Higher Calling

by Chand Prasad, Ph.D. 

Seventy five percent of emerging diseases in humans are of animal origin [1], and humans are at risk of being killed in large numbers by cross-species transmission of illnesses between, pigs, humans, birds, and other animals. Over the past 25 years, 38 illnesses have jumped to humans, as disease-causing pathogens have mutated and moved up the food chain [2]. This article focuses on two diseases associated with the global meat culture--avian influenza or bird flu as it is commonly known, and bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), known as mad cow disease. Various countries are attempting to develop a coordinated response to these diseases, as they tend to spread from one part of the world to another. However, these containment strategies are exceedingly difficult to implement in part because they depend critically on international collaboration. Detection, containment, and eradication mechanisms require cooperation from countries that possess neither the administrative structures nor the political will to enforce these measures. Government planning commissions and task forces fail to recognize the value of following basic regulations that include vegetarianism, choosing instead to prop up destructive and impractical systems of animal agriculture.

Intensive industrial livestock farming systems are in fact incubation centers for disease outbreaks. Approximately 10 billion land animals are slaughtered in the U.S. each year, almost all of which are housed in extremely crowded sheds, surrounded by their own fecal matter. High concentrations of ammonia in the air destroy the animals' lungs and weaken their immune systems. The result is that they are highly vulnerable to deadly disease outbreaks such as hoof-and-mouth disease, mad cow disease, Mycobacterium paratuberculosis (which is thought by most scientists to cause Crohn’s disease in humans), and bird flu. Moreover, because of the crowded conditions, when one animal contracts an illness it spreads rapidly to others. Farmers attempt to prevent and control disease outbreaks through heavy doses of antibiotics, which are only temporarily effective against bacteria and completely ineffective against viruses such as bird flu. Avian influenza is prevalent on Chinese poultry farms, and the widespread use of the drug amantadine to control viral outbreaks in animals has made the bird flu resistant, rendering the drug useless to protect people [3].

Avian influenza poses a grave threat, with the potential to kill one in eight human beings, including 40 million Americans, and cause a collapse of the world economy [4]. This assessment cannot be dismissed as simply the view of uninformed extremists, particularly since the Senior UN System Coordinator for Avian and Human Influenza, Dr. David Nabarro, described bird flu as a threat to "the survival of the world as we know it." [4a] Intensive animal agriculture is the functional equivalent of a time bomb, as these viruses are constantly changing, and weaker forms in birds are known to mutate in just months into highly pathogenic forms for which there exists no effective treatment or vaccine [5].

Robert Webster, a world-renowned virologist, made a fascinating recommendation regarding the bird flu threat: "the average person should be prepared to live in their family unit for three months. You have to have food, dried food, resources to live for 3 months in your unit." [6] Clearly, the International Society for Cow Protection (ISCOWP) goes further than this because it has years of experience, not just in storing and preserving food, but also in the actual production of food towards self-sufficiency. The managing directors of ISCOWP are disciples of His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, whose spiritual teachings include cow protection. ISCOWP provides an increasingly viable and relevant alternative to commercial agriculture and the meat culture. Moreover, it is actively involved in educating others in cow protection and the self-sufficiency arts through its outreach programs. The value of this information is becoming progressively self-evident, particularly since bird flu is only one of the many disease threats propagated by the meat culture.

Thousands of Americans may already be dying because of Mad Cow disease every year. Humans face risks from eating meat products contaminated with BSE, which leads to a fatal nerve disease known as Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (CJD). The incidence of CJD may be far greater than is currently recognized, in part because the incubation period for human spongiform encephalopathies such as CJD can be decades, meaning that it can be years after eating infected meat that a patient is finally diagnosed. Unfortunately, CJD is more often misdiagnosed as multiple sclerosis or as a severe viral infection in younger victims, and among the elderly it is most frequently misdiagnosed as Alzheimer’s disease [7].

Cattle contract BSE from consuming contaminated feed, and for this reason, the U.S. banned ground-up cattle remains from being added to cattle feed in 1997. However, it is more accurate to refer to the 1997 regulation as a partial ban because the tissues with the highest potential for risk (cattle brains and spinal cords) are rendered directly into animal feed that continues to be fed legally to pigs and chickens in North America. Pigs, which are susceptible to BSE prions, can then be legally fed back to cattle, which means that laws in the U.S. allow BSE prions to be indirectly cycled right back into cattle feed. Aside from the indirect transmission mechanism described above, there is also the issue that the partial ban is poorly enforced, as it is virtually impossible to effectively monitor America’s estimated one million livestock producers. Moreover, as lax as our standards are in the U.S., we imported millions of live cattle from Mexico in the past 5 years, where the labeling of feeds and compliance with labeling are questionable [7]. It is interesting to note that on March 13^th of this year, it was reported that a cow in Alabama tested positive for mad cow disease [8].

Surveillance and testing programs in the United States are actually rather weak in comparison to countries such as France, which tests more cattle in a single week than the U.S. has tested in its 14 year testing history. This comparison is all the more striking, given that France has only a fraction of the U.S. cattle population. In the U.S., the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association maintains that testing cows that are less than 2 years of age "would be like testing first-graders for Alzheimer’s", despite the fact that Europe and Japan have both found cases of BSE in cattle under 24 months of age [7].

Throughout the world, societies are strongly attached to cruel, aggressively stupid carnivorous diets. It is interesting to consider the remarkable length people will go through just to satisfy their taste for meat, even to the point of risking pandemics, millions of human deaths, and a collapse of the world economy. Be that as it may, we do not advocate vegetarianism as the end all, be all. Rather, we recognize that meat eating is the main barrier to understanding God. Whatever seemingly pious things meat eaters may do, those who are animal killers, meat-eaters, can never understand God. It is simply not possible. So the real objective is spiritual advancement, which is demonstrably practical, for the following reason: the most life-threatening problems can be solved in an almost incidental manner, simply as a by-product of accepting the spiritual principles that were taught by Srila Prabhupada.

1. "Addressing Avian Influenza: The Challenges of Partnership," Dr. Bernard Vallat, International Pledging Conference on Avian and Human Pandemic Influenza, January 17-18, 2006.

2. "Scientists warn of growing animal-disease risk," Associated Press, February 20, 2006.

3. "Bird Flu Drug Rendered Useless," Alan Sipress, Washington Post, June 18, 2005: A01.

4. "Capitol Hill Flu Briefing Was No Trick, and No Treat," Dana Milbank, The Washington Post October 13, 2005: A02.

4a. "World As We Know It' May Be at Stake: UN Pandemic Czar," Helen Branswell, Cnews, October 2, 2005.

5. "Avian Influenza Frequently Asked Questions: Which Viruses Cause Highly Pathogenic Disease?" World Health Organization, November 3, 2005.

6. "A Bit of Context on the Bird Flu Threat," ABC News, March 13, 2006.

7. "U.S. Continues to Violate World Health Organization Guidelines for BSE," Michael Greger, M.D., January 23, 2004.

8. "Mad cow disease found in Alabama," Associated Press, March 13, 2006.