Letters to the Editor: Prevent the next pandemic. Go vegan

To the editor: This animal advocate wishes to thank Wendy Orent for articulating in the most concise fashion the horrors and cruelties of the Asian “wet markets” and the factory farms in the U.S. and other western countries, where animals are forced to endure short and unspeakably miserable lives. (“Want to avoid pandemics? Eliminate factory farming,” Opinion, Nov. 30)

She clearly describes how and why these cramped conditions have led to the many zoonotic diseases that have for centuries befallen the human species.

The reasons why humans ignore or refuse to acknowledge this reality mostly have to do with money. Big Agriculture, the industrial farms and those in ancillary businesses have every financial incentive to keep this system of cruelty going, and people are reluctant to change their longstanding dining habits.

It is, thus far, more lucrative and easier for us to continue abusing and killing animals. Orent warns us that we are continuing to tread on this same path, apparently until we expire as a species.

Elaine Livesey-Fassel, Los Angeles

..

To the editor: Factory farms cause pandemics, which means buying dead animal parts and animal secretions from factory farms is the same as helping to cause the next pandemic.

We vote with our dollars. Every dollar spent supporting factory farms is another vote to continue the sickness.

For the sake of your country, go vegan.

Heather Thorsen, Beverly Hills, Mich.