All of nongiga's Comments + Replies

This fits with my general impression that biosecurity experts in EA (at OpenPhil, FHI, and elsewhere) don't generally consider antibiotic resistance to be a top-priority threat. Reading this question made me realise that I don't have a very detailed understanding of why that is. What you describe sounds like an important part of it.

Thank you! Your points are very good ones. Yes, this is true to some extent, although it's likely that even if viruses that are virulent in other animals are less so in bats, they are nevertheless, if to a minor extent, harmful for them. Maybe to them the viruses would be like a cold would be to us. So in these cases it is likely to be beneficial. It will just be much less so than in the case of other diseases we considered here, like rabies or white nose disease. In addition to these cases, these programs would benefit nonhuman animals other than bats who may be infected by them, and would also be beneficial in the other ways pointed out in the last section of the piece. Available evidence suggests is pretty widespread unfortunately. See this piece [https://www.animal-ethics.org/wild-animal-suffering-section/situation-of-animals-wild/diseases-nature/] . Yes! This is a reason why we think that promoting more research at the intersection of animal welfare science and the science of ecology is necessary. We've been funding work about this that examines different causes of death in wild animals in different countries, see here [https://www.animal-ethics.org/dr-meagan-king-is-awarded-animal-ethics-postdoctoral-grant-to-carry-out-research-on-welfare-biology-at-the-university-of-guelph/] and here [https://www.animal-ethics.org/animal-ethics-funding-project-examining-causes-of-harm-and-mortality-to-wild-animals-in-greece/] . Monitoring is also needed after the vaccination programs are implemented. You're right, and this is a very significant concern. It is true that right now, because of the urgency to come up with a vaccine for COVID-19, testing is being directly carried out in human subjects (see for instance here [http://www.rfi.fr/en/science-and-technology/20200423-human-trials-begin-in-worldwide-race-to-develop-covid-19-vaccine-coronavirus-study-france-uk-germany] , here [https://www.bbc.com/news/health-51906604?at_custom3=%40BBCWorld&at_custom1=%5Bpost+type%5