- Joined
- Dec 2, 2017
- Reaction score
- 1,209
- Age
- 50
- Lifestyle
- Vegan
(Split from Is factory farming to blame for coronavirus?)
Eating animals/their byproducts, handling dead animals produces disease. I have no issues believing this. This is consistent with history and the scientific literature. There is a consistent link between many diseases and animal consumption/handling, or the insects that are associated with these animals. Even the bubonic plague had it's origins in rats or the fleas that infested them.
However, the idea that one human being can infect another absent these factors (said infectee not having come into contact with the animal products either by touch/proximity and/or eating them or the insects that carry disease) but solely by another human who has (such as the case in what we believe are "viral" infections) is not something that is proven to me.
Take measles. All the common knowledge on this is that it is caused by a virus. Go to wikipedia and that's what it will tell you. One of the interesting ( and relatively recent) developments was that this was challenged by Stefan Lanka who set a reward to the person who could prove it was caused by a virus by the requirements he set out. He recently won the case against a claimant who took him up on his offer, and although initially ordered to pay, the case was ultimately ruled in his favor. Headlines followed that he has proven no measles virus exists. That may be misleading, because if I'm reading the story right, he won because his requirements to prove the virus existed were not met. Which leads obviously to - what were his requirements?
Eating animals/their byproducts, handling dead animals produces disease. I have no issues believing this. This is consistent with history and the scientific literature. There is a consistent link between many diseases and animal consumption/handling, or the insects that are associated with these animals. Even the bubonic plague had it's origins in rats or the fleas that infested them.
However, the idea that one human being can infect another absent these factors (said infectee not having come into contact with the animal products either by touch/proximity and/or eating them or the insects that carry disease) but solely by another human who has (such as the case in what we believe are "viral" infections) is not something that is proven to me.
Take measles. All the common knowledge on this is that it is caused by a virus. Go to wikipedia and that's what it will tell you. One of the interesting ( and relatively recent) developments was that this was challenged by Stefan Lanka who set a reward to the person who could prove it was caused by a virus by the requirements he set out. He recently won the case against a claimant who took him up on his offer, and although initially ordered to pay, the case was ultimately ruled in his favor. Headlines followed that he has proven no measles virus exists. That may be misleading, because if I'm reading the story right, he won because his requirements to prove the virus existed were not met. Which leads obviously to - what were his requirements?
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