New York City urged to shut down 80 live animal markets amid fresh pandemic fears

Dozens of live animal markets are dotted across the five boroughs and many operate out of storefronts in close proximity to homes, schools and parks

New York

Thursday 07 May 2020 21:40 BST

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New York's live animal markets

New legislation has been introduced to shut down New York City’s more than 80 live animal markets amid calls to urgently address the risk of animal-borne diseases in the wake of the coronavirus outbreak.

The New York state bill, sponsored by assembly member Linda B Rosenthal and state senator Luis Sepulveda, wants to immediately shutter state-licensed live animal markets and set up a taskforce of scientific and conservation experts to determine whether it is possible for them to operate safely.

Ms Rosenthal told The Independent that she was shocked to learn of the unsanitary conditions inside some of the markets after reviewing New York State Department of Agriculture and Markets reports.

She said: “The reports detail how there are no proper drainage systems in a lot of these markets so all the blood, faeces and body parts get swept out onto the sidewalk, or are in the killing rooms and places where people go to pick out an animal. Prominent doctors and scientists say that these kinds of markets need to be shut down to forestall a future virus and epidemic from occurring.”

The coronavirus likely originated at a market in Wuhan, China. Scientists suspect that the virus was transmitted from bats to humans via an intermediary host, perhaps a pangolin, although researchers are yet to arrive at a final conclusion.

There have been international calls to ban the trade in wild animals following the coronavirus outbreak. Free-roaming mammals, birds, reptiles and amphibians are reservoirs of unique pathogens that can spill over into humans and result in highly infectious diseases.

Zoonotic diseases account for 75 per cent of emerging infectious diseases, according to the National Institutes of Health.

The Department of Agriculture and Markets, which oversees smaller live animal facilities, says that live bird markets in New York are different than the wet markets of China and mainly deal in domestic poultry.

Inside US hospital: A day fighting the coronavirus

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1/13Inside US hospital: A day fighting the coronavirus

Inside US hospital: A day fighting the coronavirus

Cheryll Mack, 46, a registered nurse in the emergency department, poses for a photograph after a 12-hour shift outside the hospital where she works. "The Covid-19 spread has affected a lot of livelihood, a lot of people's lives. It has created a crisis, death in general. So I would like to ask not one single person, but all people worldwide, to converge and join the platform that this is something that nobody can fight individually," said Mack.

Reuters

Inside US hospital: A day fighting the coronavirus

Dr Laura Bontempo, 50, an emergency medicine doctor wears her personal protective equipment she uses when she sees patients, while posing for a photograph after a nine-hour shift, outside the hospital. "The hardest moments have actually been separating families from patients, there is a no-visitor policy now and taking people away from their loved ones is very challenging," Bontempo said. "I'm used to treating sick patients. I treat sick patients all the time. It's very different knowing that the patient you are treating, is actually a risk to you as well. That's the main difference here. No one who works in hospitals is afraid of treating sick people. Just want to keep staff safe and the patients safe at the same time."

Reuters

Inside US hospital: A day fighting the coronavirus

Ernest Capadngan, 29, a registered nurse who works at a biocontainment unit poses for a photograph after a 12-hour shift, outside the hospital. "The hardest moment during the shift was just seeing Covid patients die helpless and without their family members beside them," Capadngan said.

Reuters

Inside US hospital: A day fighting the coronavirus

Martine Bell, 41, a nurse practitioner in an emergency department, poses for a photograph after a six-hour shift outside the hospital where she works. "The hardest thing in all of this, has been taking care of fellow healthcare providers. It really hits home and it's really scary when you see someone that could be you coming in and now you're taking care of them. It's also hitting home that once healthcare providers start getting sick, who is going to be taking care of the public," Bell said. "It's very stressful, everyone is on edge. We don't know who's coming in next, or how sick they're going to be, or if we are going to get a whole bunch of people or if we're not going to get no one. It's a really stressful and just a completely unusual time for all of us."

Reuters

Inside US hospital: A day fighting the coronavirus

Kaitlyn Martiniano, 25, a registered nurse who works at a biocontainment poses for a photograph after a 12.5-hour shift, outside the hospital. "We have a lot of patients and they are pretty sick right now but we have not yet been hit as hard as New York or Seattle, so I feel like we are very lucky with that so far. Every day you have to just be optimistic." Said Martiniano. "I think the reason that we are not being hit as hard right now is because so many things are closed, and because so many people are staying at home."

Reuters

Inside US hospital: A day fighting the coronavirus

Tracey Wilson, 53, a nurse practitioner in an intensive care unit (ICU), poses for a photograph after a 12-hour shift, outside the hospital where she works. "I had a patient fall out of bed today and I had to call his wife and tell her and she couldn't come see him, even though she pleaded and begged to come see him," Wilson said. "There is a lot of unknowns and with that unknown is a lot of anxiety and stress that we're not used to dealing with."

Reuters

Inside US hospital: A day fighting the coronavirus

Meghan Sheehan, 27, a nurse practitioner in an emergency department, poses for a photograph after a 12-hour shift, outside the hospital where she works. "I think the hardest moment has been the fear that lives within all of us. There is a lot of unknown right now. We fear what's going to happen tomorrow, how the emergency department will look next week when we come in. We have fears about our own colleagues, whether they will fall ill. We also fear that we could be asymptomatic carriers and bring this virus home to our families and our loved ones. There has been a lot of fear over our supplies and whether we'll run out. And then obviously there is the fear that we will see patients and not be able to do everything we normally can to help save patients' lives," Sheehan said.

Reuters

Inside US hospital: A day fighting the coronavirus

Kimberly Bowers, 44, a nurse practitioner in an ICU, poses for a photograph after a 13-hour shift, outside the hospital. "The hardest moment was a young woman who died and her family wasn't able to be here with her," Bowers said. "I think right now, it's just frustrating and scary just not knowing what comes next."

Reuters

Inside US hospital: A day fighting the coronavirus

Tiffany Fare, 25, a registered nurse who works at a biocontainment unit poses for a photograph after a 13-hour shift, outside the hospital where she works. "One of the hardest moments was having to see a family member of a Covid patient, say goodbye over an iPad, rooms away. That was a tough one, I can't imagine how hard it would be to be saying goodbye, you can't see your loved one and then they're gone," Fare said. "My team has been really great to me. We've worked really well together and we've really come together in this crisis. We don't really know each other, we all come from different units within the same hospital, so for us to come together and work so well as a team, it's been a journey but I think that's what is giving me hope."

Reuters

Inside US hospital: A day fighting the coronavirus

Dr Kyle Fischer, 35, an emergency medicine doctor, poses for a photograph after a 12-hour shift, outside the hospital where he works. "Since it's a new virus, we don't have any experience with it. For most diseases I am used to seeing it and taking care of it and this, I don't have any starting place. I know what I'm hearing from New York, I've read all of the papers it seems like, but no one knows what the correct answers are, so there's a huge amount of uncertainty and people are really, really sick. So it's hard to second guess whether or not you are doing the right thing when you think you are but you never quite know," said Fischer.

Reuters

Inside US hospital: A day fighting the coronavirus

Julia Trainor, 23, a registered nurse at a surgical ICU, poses for a photograph after a 14-hour shift, outside the hospital. "The hardest moment was having to put a breathing tube in my patient who could no longer breathe for herself and after the breathing tube went in, we called her family and the husband, of course, couldn't visit her because of visitor restrictions at the hospital. So I had to put him on the phone and hold the phone to her ear, as he told her that he loved her so much and then I had to wipe away her tears as she was crying," said Trainor. "I'm used to seeing very sick patients and I'm used to patients dying but nothing quite like this. In the flip of a switch, without the support, they're completely isolated. They're very sick. Some of them recover and some of them don't. But the hardest part, I would think, is them having to go through this feeling like they are alone."

Reuters

Inside US hospital: A day fighting the coronavirus

Lisa Mehring, 45, a registered nurse who works in a biocontainment unit with Covid-19 patients, poses for a photograph after a 12.5-hour shift, outside the hospital where she works in Maryland. "Seeing these new moms have babies has been the hardest moment along with having do their pumping for the new moms and them not being able to be with their newborn children, it's hard to think of the family that they are missing," Mehring said.

Photos Reuters

Inside US hospital: A day fighting the coronavirus

Jacqueline Hamil, 30, a registered nurse in an emergency department, poses for a photograph after a 12-hour shift outside the hospital. "The hardest moment of my shift today, I was in charge, and we had a really sick patient that was in a really, really small room and usually, when we have sick crashing patients, we can have a ton of resources and a ton of staff go in and help with the nurse and the doctors that are taking care of that patient. But due to the patient being ruled out for the coronavirus, we could only have five or six people in the room at a time and putting on all the gowns and gloves and masks and face shields to protect us in case the patient does have coronavirus, it takes a while, so the nurse that was in there, ended up being in the room for you know 6, 7 hours with minimal breaks and it was hard being in charge and knowing that she was stuck in the room and really nothing I could do to help her," Hamil said.

Reuters

However, animal welfare campaigners and public health officials point out that risks of infectious disease still exist.

Dr Neal Barnard, president of the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, who supports the new bill, said: “Avoiding future pandemics like the Covid-19 global crisis requires a total ban on live markets, including 80 in New York City alone.

“Poultry flocks are breeding grounds for influenza A viruses, and live animal markets are the source of coronavirus.”

According to the Humane Society, two cases of low-pathogenic avian influenza were detected at a Brooklyn live animal slaughter market in 2012.

The coronavirus has led to more than 251,000 deaths and 3.6 million infections worldwide. As of today, New York has 25,720 deaths – both confirmed cases and those identified by public health officials as probable Covid-19 patients – and more than 329,000 total infections.

In New York, dozens of live animal markets are spread across the five boroughs and outlying areas, according to a map collated by animal rights activists Slaughter Free NYC.

Some storefront facilities are close to homes, schools and parks. A 2008 state law banned new slaughterhouses operating within 1,500ft of a residential building but a number were grandfathered into their areas.

Video taken by animal welfare organisations Theirturn.net and Slaughter Free NYC shows live chickens crammed into cages, cannibalising the carcasses of dead animals and being killed in seemingly unsanitary conditions.

The footage also shows the chickens being slaughtered and bled out on New York City streets, with feathers and mangled carcasses left in the gutters.

Workers can be seen handling animals without protective gloves, aprons and masks.

“With hundreds of caged and penned animals, many of whom are visibly sick, urinating and defecating on each other and the floor, New York’s wet markets are a breeding ground for infectious disease,” Donny Moss, a New York-based filmmaker who documented conditions in several of the city’s live animal markets with TheirTurn.net, told The Independent.

“If the state doesn’t shut these facilities down, then the next zoonotic disease pandemic could just as easily originate in densely-populated New York City as it could in China.”

Ducks, chickens, guinea hens, goats, and even cows and bulls are slaughtered and sold at New York live markets, the New York Daily News reported, where the preparation can have both religious and cultural significance.

In 2015, Slate reported on the black market trade in turtles in the city, which carry a risk of samonella bacteria.

Legislation introduced in 2016, relating to the licensing of establishments where animals or fowl are slaughtered, noted: “Businesses and residents complained regularly about the unbearable odour that emanated from the markets, odour that became virtually intolerable during the hot summer months.

“Often, markets failed to properly dispose of animal entrails, which created undesirable conditions in the streets and on the sidewalks of the city. Floating feathers clogged sewer drains and air conditioning/heating ducts and presented asthma, allergy and respiratory hazards.”

New York City has the largest number of live bird markets in the US, according to the Humane Society, with each maintaining an estimated 208,000 live birds each year, amounting to total sales of up to 17 million birds annually.

Several live animal markets in the city have poor inspection records, according to documents seen by The Independent.

Citations were issued for improper cleaning, allowing dried meat to build up on grinders and grimy food surfaces. Inspectors, who make unannounced visits along with four checks a year, cited one facility for an accumulation of faecal matter and feathers on the floor.

It is unclear what penalties live markets have faced for unsanitary conditions.

No inspections of markets have taken place for a number of weeks due to Covid-19 lockdown measures. The markets are considered essential services during the pandemic.

Map of live markets and urban slaughterhouses across New York City’s five boroughs and outlying areas (Slaughterfreenyc.com)

“The hundreds of pages of inspection reports document substandard conditions at almost every market in the city,” said Ms Rosenthal.

“The inspections don’t tell the story of a bad actor caught on a bad day, they tell the story of an industry that, as a result of poor regulation and oversight, has allowed conditions to degenerate to the point of becoming a public health risk.”

The Department of Agriculture and Markets said that essential businesses should be taking additional measures to achieve social distancing and following guidelines on hygiene and face masks.

“It is important to note that the CDC and the USDA have stated that there is no evidence that domestic animals can spread Covid-19 to humans. The greatest risk of transmission remains human-to-human contact,” the department said.

The new bill would not impact facilities overseen by the US Department of Agriculture, which mostly oversees larger facilities.

Last month, more than 60 bipartisan lawmakers urged the World Health Organisation and the United Nations to immediately ban live wildlife markets and the international trade of live wildlife around the world.

A letter sent by senators, including New Jersey Democrat Cory Booker and South Carolina Republican Lindsey Graham, urged for swift action to protect public health.

The New York state bill was supported by a host of animal rights organisations and public health officials, including Dr Aysha Akhtar, a neurologist and public health specialist, the Humane Society of New York, Peta, Woodstock Farm Sanctuary, NY Farm Animal Save, Slaughter Free NYC, The Animal Cruelty Exposure Fund and Jewish Veg.

Judie Mancuso, founder and president of Social Compassion in Legislation, which spearheads advocacy efforts, said: “Although Covid-19 originated in China, it could have come from anywhere. Our focus should be addressing the root of the problem. It is not the ‘where,’ but is the ‘what’. This virus could have originated in any country that exploits and commodifies animals including right here in the USA. Humanity as a whole owns this virus as we continually exploit animals and allow the threat to continue.”

Peta president Ingrid Newkirk said: “We need filthy meat markets like a swimmer needs a crocodile – for as long as we keep them open, we put ourselves in mortal danger. Peta applauds assembly member Rosenthal and state senator Sepulveda on their common sense decision to shut down these dangerous incubators.”

The Independent is campaigning for an end to the wildlife trade.

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