Swine Flu Spike Prompts Urgent ‘Go Vegan’ Plea by PETA India

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Mumbai, 05th September 2022 (GNI): “Swine Flu Originated on a Pig Factory Farm”. That’s the new sky-high alert in Mumbai and Pune from People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) India that highlights the meat industry’s link to deadly zoonotic diseases and urges people to eat vegan amid the rising number of H1N1 swine flu infections. Recently, it was reported that swine flu, which humans initially contracted after it developed from viruses in farmed pigs, has been detected in about 1500 people in Maharashtra since January – and dozens of patients have already died.

The billboard is located near Amarsons Collections on Linking Road, Bandra West, Mumbai, Maharashtra 400050. (https://www.petaindia.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Creative.jpg)

“A swift shift to vegan eating is necessary to prevent the spread of zoonotic diseases such as swine flu, which spread from pig factory farms, and to spare sensitive animals a terrifying death,” says PETA India Manager of Vegan Projects Dr Kiran Ahuja. “PETA India is calling on everyone to save us all by embracing animal-free fare.”

Scientists traced the H1N1 swine flu virus to pigs in Mexico in January 2009. A predecessor of the 2009 H1N1 swine flu virus, however, emerged in the US, where it was the dominant flu strain in factory farmed US pigs. Disease trackers point to the long-distance trade of pigs between Mexico, the US, and Europe for allowing a new strain of influenza to form. According to the World Health Organization, close proximity to infected pigs or visits to locations where pigs are exhibited have been reported in many cases of human swine flu.

Meanwhile, H5N1 bird flu, which has a 60% mortality rate in humans, easily spreads through chicken factory farms and live-animal markets. COVID-19 is believed to have spread from a live-animal meat market in China.

According to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 75% of new or emerging diseases affecting humans originate in animals. And now, we are seeing the emergence of three to four new zoonotic diseases every year. What’s changed is that in recent decades, humans have been increasingly interfering with forests and wildlife, and today, over 70% of the world’s farmed animals are reared on crowded, intensive factory farms.

In addition to helping fight infectious diseases, people who eat vegan reduce their risk of developing heart disease, diabetes, and cancer. Vegan meals also spare animals immense suffering. In today’s meat, egg, and dairy industries, huge numbers of animals are raised in vast warehouses in severe confinement. As PETA India reveals in the video exposé “Glass Walls”, chickens killed for food are often shackled upside down before their throats are slit. Cows and buffaloes are crammed into vehicles in such large numbers that their bones often break before they’re dragged off to the slaughterhouse, and pigs are stabbed in the heart as they scream. On the decks of fishing boats, fish suffocate or are cut open while they’re still alive, stated in the press release.

PETA India – whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to eat” – opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview, and offers a free vegetarian/vegan starter kit. For more information, please visit PETAIndia.com or follow the group on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram. Ends GNI SG