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Comment by geddy | Hacker News Reader

This is the only actual solution. All of these diseases will continue because of our close proximity to animals, factory farming being the biggest offender.

We also breed super viruses by feeding the vast majority of our produced antibiotics to animals. Yeah, we need to stop eating animals and animal products as quickly as possible. There literally is no other way.

In a few years lab grown meat will be a solution to those who don't want to switch over to a plant-based diet, so there's that.

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Exactly which disease outbreak was due to factory farming? SARS, Ebola, and Covid-19 were all caused by wild animals probably hunted/captured by sustenance farmers and kept in a dense, diverse essentially farmers market.

This is all the exact opposite of factory farming and the industrial food supply chain we have in the west.

Can you elaborate how factory farming was contributing to this outbreak? From all I've read, the virus evolved in wild animals (presumably bats).

Swine flu came from domestically raised pigs. Factory farming makes it more likely because the pigs are kept in close, confined quarters, increasing the spread between animals. The virus is passed from the animals to the farm workers.

Not this specific outbreak, but it was from the meat trade (wild caught or farmed). We keep stressed out animals in disgusting conditions in close proximity which is a breeding ground for disease. We then interact with them.

And of course, wild animals (like bats) can transmit diseases to other species (like pigs). Who can then transmit it to all the other pigs around it.

Then we pump them full of medication so they don't get sick, and end up creating antibiotic resistance.

Antibiotics cause super viruses. By killing bacteria? Umm, no.

This virus came from a wildlife market filled with multiple species stacked on top of each other. Let's not act like this is equivalent in danger to chicken/beef production.

Um, yes. If you keep taking the same antibiotics (or feeding them in huge quantities to livestock) then yes, new strains of viruses that are antibiotic resistant will emerge. That's how viruses work and evolve.

Otherwise we'd have discovered a flu vaccine and then no one would have ever gotten the flu again. Yet here we are. The virus evolves and changes over time.

The fact that you don't know the difference between viruses and bacteria is apalling. Stop reading about coding, because you are ignorant.

how do antibiotics contribute to the development of super viruses?

They don't. Ignorant statement from parent.

To be fair, his point that it's dangerous stands. They do create super bacteria [1]. Of course, with bacteria, you'll experience it through an unlucky lottery rather than a pandemic.

[1] https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-drug-resistan...

How's it ignorant? I'd love for you to elaborate on that. Keeping stressed animals in close proximity in filthy conditions and packing them full of antibiotics is not good for anyone (especially the animals). It's a disease breeding ground and all the antibiotics breed antibiotic resistance.

How's that ignorant again?

bacteria != viruses

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