“The leading cause of global deforestation is agriculture, especially meat and dairy production, which uses 77% of all agricultural land.”1
“The evidence from this analysis demonstrates that in Indonesia between 2000 and 2008, firstborn children faced a greater risk of infant mortality compared to other children when exposed to deforestation in utero.”2
“More than two-thirds of deforested land in the Brazilian Amazon has been converted to cattle pastures”3
“CDC sharply raises H1N1 case estimates; kids hit hard”1
So far, globally and within the past two centuries, at least nine pandemics have been caused by animal agriculture (not including Covid-19). Pandemics that have been caused by animal agriculture, within the past two centuries alone, include: SARS, MERs, H1N1, H5N1, Bovine tuberculosis, BSE, Nipah Virus and Q fever.2
“16-year-old boy from Guatemala, Duvan Tomas Perez, was killed at a slaughterhouse while department found 4,474 children working illegally since the start of fiscal year”1
“Photos released by the US labor department taken at a slaughterhouse plant in Nebraska show the conditions more than 100 children faced while illegally working for Packers Sanitation Services Incorporated (PSSI)”2
“Working inside a slaughterhouse, a job that involves brutalizing and murdering animals for 8+ hours each day, has also been empirically proven to lead to higher rates of violent crime, domestic abuse, child abuse and rape in surrounding communities.”1
“A former slaughterhouse worker has been jailed for life for abducting and murdering a girl” ‘judge Griffith Williams said Bridger was “a pedophile who ... harboured sexual and morbid fantasies about young girls.”’2
“This research examined the relationship between the presence of a slaughterhouse in the community and violent crime rates. Findings indicated that the location of a slaughterhouse in a county was associated with increases in the total arrest rate, arrests for rape, and arrests for offenses against the family in comparison to counties without a slaughterhouse, pointing to a relationship between the violence of killing nonhuman animals and violence towards humans.”3
“Maldistribution of food is exacerbated by unsustainable agricultural practices, such as depletion of cultivable land, topsoil, water, energy and minerals, and the conversion of plant-based foods to animal protein. A meat-based diet requires 10-20 times as much land as a plant-based diet. The process begins with the clear-cutting of forests to create pasture for cattle and other ruminants. Eventually, the land is turned into feedcrops for animals raised and slaughtered for food.”
“Depletion of topsoil and minerals begins soon after the trees are cut and escalates with tilling. Without the plant growth to hold it in place, topsoil, laden with minerals, fertilizer, and organic debris, is carried by rain and melting snow into nearby streams. Animal agriculture produces more water pollutants than all other human activities combined and contributes to global warming more than automobiles. The intense demand for animal feed crops leads to the use of sloping land, with greater runoff, arid land requiring irrigation. Water shortages also result.”
“Plant-based foods contain the nutrients required for healthy growth and vigorous activity. They are free of the cholesterol, saturated fats, hor- mones, drugs, and pathogens that cause widespread death and disease in affluent nations.”1
“Poor nutrition and hunger is responsible for the death of 3.1 million children a year.”2
“Every year, up to 214,000 newborn babies, mostly in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), die of sepsis that has become resistant to antibiotics”1
“The use of antibiotics in animal farming — a major contributor to antimicrobial resistance — is expected to grow by 8% between 2020 and 2030 despite ongoing efforts to curtail their use, according to an analysis”2
“Waste from agricultural livestock operations has been a long-standing concern with respect to contamination of water resources, particularly in terms of nutrient pollution.”1
“The effects of unsafe drinking water are severe, as data shows that approximately every year two million people, mostly children under the age of 5, die from water-releated diseases (Harvard Review of Latin America, 2013).”2
“Animals, particularly cattle, can carry L. monocytogenes without appearing sick and shed the bacteria in their feces.”1
“Listeria infection is the third leading cause of death from foodborne illness in the United States.”2
“Pregnant women are 18 times more likely to get listeriosis than other healthy adults, and 16 to 27% of all L. monocytogenes infections are in pregnant women. Scientists don’t know why pregnant women are so susceptible to the disease. It usually affects pregnant women who are healthy and don’t have other risk factors.”1
“Diagnosing listeriosis in pregnant women is difficult because they usually don’t have the gastrointestinal symptoms—such as vomiting and diarrhea—that are normally seen with a foodborne illness.”1
“Compared to listeriosis in non-pregnant people, the disease in pregnant women has a longer incubation period—the length of time between when a person ingests the bacteria and first shows symptoms. In one study, the median incubation period in pregnant women was 27.5 days, with a range of 17 to 67 days (Goulet et al, 2013). This long incubation period adds to the difficulty in diagnosing listeriosis in pregnant women.”1
“While listeriosis in the mother is mild, infection in the fetus and newborn can be severe. Listeriosis can develop at any time during pregnancy, and the disease causes miscarriage, stillbirth, premature birth, and life-threatening infection of the newborn, such as a blood infection, respiratory distress or pneumonia, and meningitis (inflammation of the membranes surrounding the brain and spinal cord). Listeriosis is one of the most common causes of meningitis in newborns.”1
“With a mortality rate of 20 to 30%, newborns suffer the most serious consequences of listeriosis. They have either early- or late-onset disease depending on when their symptoms first appear.”1
“A recent study published in the journal Science analyzed heat-related death records in Mexico from 1998 to 2019. Of the 73,000 heat-related deaths during that period, 75 percent occurred among those under 35, with children under 5 and adults aged 18–34 being the most vulnerable.”2
“Animal agriculture produces 65% of the world's nitrous oxide emissions which has a global warming impact 296 times greater than carbon dioxide.”3
“Processing one pound of beef uses 2,500 gallons of water, while it takes 477 gallons of water for eggs and nearly 900 gallons for cheese.”1
“Animal agriculture is a water-intensive industry. From irrigating pastures and crops to providing drinking water for livestock, the water demand is substantial. Additionally, the production of animal feed requires significant amounts of water.”2
“When water scarcity exists, meaning the available water supply cannot meet the demand, it essentially exacerbates drought conditions by depleting water sources and making the effects of low precipitation even more severe, leading to a prolonged period of inadequate water availability.”3
“Food insecurity caused by drought increases the risk of malnutrition, stunting and wasting, and death in children, particularly those under 5 years.”4
‘Somalia's drought killed 43,000 last year, half under five’5
‘Over 420,000 children affected by record-breaking drought in the Amazon region’4
“We find irrigation of cattle-feed crops to be the greatest consumer of river water in the western United States; implicating beef and dairy consumption as the leading driver of water shortages and fish imperilment in the region.”
“Long-term water security and river ecosystem health will ultimately require Americans to consume less beef that depends on irrigated feed crops.”6
“Living near areas with higher pollution increases the risk of lower birth weights and increases the risk of stillbirth by 42%”1
“CAFOs, often used in animal agriculture and invented in the U.S., are hazardous waste facilities and disporportionally positioned near black, brown and low-income communities.”2
