The next pandemic could come from factory farms

We've engineered the perfect environment for deadly new germs.

In the last half-century, the global production of meat has undergone a seismic shift. While meat was once mostly raised on small farms, today almost all the meat we eat comes from industrialized “factory” farms, known as “concentrated animal feeding operations,” or CAFOs. Animals in CAFOs are often packed closely together, which makes them both efficient and, for many, ethically dubious.