Epidemiologist, Rob Wallace, and virologist, Angela Rasmussen, are warning us that the intensive raising of agricultural animals for food will likely cause the next pandemic because these industrial barns are like virus factories. Raising thousands of animals in close confinement with each other, in completely unnatural indoor settings, causes them to be highly stressed and this increases the opportunity for viruses to grow and spread like wildfire. These two experts explained it on this episode of W5.

Hog Watch Manitoba is approaching the Manitoba government to discuss the urgent need to begin the process of shifting the hog industry here away from the massive barns that currently dominate the landscape towards smaller, straw-based housing for the animals that will decrease their stress and in turn, decrease the threat of viruses emanating from barns. This will be a very major shift for the industry but one that is absolutely necessary as a pandemic prevention tool.

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