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Congress Must Act to Protect Wildlife and Public Health

Dear John,

COVID-19 has wreaked havoc on the world, causing more than 1 million deaths and impacting all our lives. As we navigate our current crisis, we must also work to prevent a future pandemic by altering our destructive relationship with the natural world. The bipartisan "Preventing Future Pandemics Act" (S. 4749/H.R. 8433), introduced by Senators John Cornyn (R-TX) and Cory Booker (D-NJ), and Representatives Mike Quigley (D-IL) and Fred Upton (R-MI), addresses a major source of this imminent threat.

Zoonotic diseases like COVID-19 are transmitted from animals to humans. In the past 40 years alone, there have been a slew of infectious diseases--such as SARS, Ebola, HIV/AIDS, avian flu, swine flu, and Zika--that originated in animals. Live wildlife markets, where a dizzying array of wild species are crammed together alongside humans and often slaughtered on-site, provide the optimal conditions for disease spillover. It is these live markets that are the primary focus of the proposed legislation.

The Preventing Future Pandemics Act prohibits the sale of live wildlife for human consumption within the United States, effectively closing live wildlife markets. The bill also calls on the State Department to form international coalitions and pursue diplomatic measures to encourage closures of live wildlife markets abroad. It dedicates funding to deploy law enforcement officers to countries where there is a flourishing trade in at-risk species, and to help international communities that rely on wildlife consumption transition to alternative food sources.

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What You Can Do
Please ask your US representative and senators ([link removed]) to cosponsor the Preventing Future Pandemics Act. Then, share this eAlert with your family, friends, and co-workers, and ask them to take action too. Thank you for taking action to protect wildlife and public health!

Sincerely,

Cathy Liss
President

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Photo by Surtr

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Animal Welfare Institute
900 Pennsylvania Avenue, SE, Washington, DC 20003
(202) 337-2332 | www.awionline.org ([link removed])

The Animal Welfare Institute is a not-for-profit organization, founded in 1951 and dedicated to reducing animal suffering caused by people. We seek better treatment of animals everywhere: in the laboratory, on the farm, in commerce, at home, and in the wild.

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