Most doctors and public health practitioners have shied away from recommending vegetarianism as a way not only to curb the emergence of animal diseases that can spread to humans, but also for preventing cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and some types of cancers.
But the connections between meat and disease are certainly there. Increasingly, evidence suggests that the intensely crowded, extremely filthy factory farms that feed animals a toxic brew of antibiotics, hormones, and high-protein feed (which may also contain the ground-up bits of other animals) are at least partly responsible for some of the zoonoses we read about every day...our continued consumption of animals not only has moral implications, but is also “highly imprudent” when it comes to preventing pandemics.
But we do have multiple opportunities for prevention, he notes - including choosing not to eat animals: http://www.worldwatch.org/node/5337
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