Monkey Disease Transmission
This, to me, is the big one. Animals are sometimes cute, often harmful, but many times they breed disease. And it is unacceptable to me that we have animals interacting with humans who breed disease. We do well enough on our own creating resistant-strains of everything already known to man - we do not need to deal with additional random strains of things currently unknown to man that will stump our researchers for years to come.
1) SIV v. HIV:
SIV stands for simian immunodeficiency virus, a retrovirus deriving from african primates. What's rather interesting about SIV in its two major forms is that it typically doesn't cause immunodeficiency symptoms in hosts unless it passes from one species to another. In the case that such symptoms occur, you have SAIDS, simian acquired immunodeficiency syndrome.
What's interesting is that evidently, monkey SIV strains do not infect humans and HIV-1 does not infect monkeys. The presumption here would be that the age-old belief that the AIDS crisis began with a random man who slept with a monkey would seemingly be untrue. However, other research in no way supports this, so it isn't at all clear what the science is behind this claim. To break it down more, it is important to note that SIV can cause AIDS in other monkeys who are susceptible and moreover, that humans with skin lesions etc. can be exposed and thus develop the disease. Most importantly, the symptoms present in the same way.
My only point is that AIDS is a terrible disease to get and if hanging around with monkeys is going to expose humans to this, we just shouldn't be hanging around with monkeys. Simple enough.
2) Simian Foamy Virus in Asia:
Yuck. Well the British Parliament cut right to the chase in pointing out that Simian Foamy Virus was transmitted to humans who ate monkey meat, much in the same way it is postulated that HIV was initially transmitted. By definition, a foamy virus in general is "any of the various retroviruses found in primates and other mammals and characterized by the lacelike changes they cause in monkey kidney cells." It is extremely common in animals in captivity, with about 70-90% of non-human primates born in captivity having SFV.
So, surprise, surprise, a HUMAN foamy virus sprouted up that is a direct result of the primate one. Currently, humans act as hosts after accidental transmission, typically as a result of laboratory conditions or interactions in the wild and have not experienced any symptoms. Nor has there been any showing of a human-to-human passing of the disease. Of course, provided that this is a normal virus, it will eventually adapt to its new hosts and learn how to spread to other humans, as this is merely the way of the virus. Although there are no known dangers at this point, this hasn't stopped the Canadian blood authority from altering its policy with regards to blood donations to exclude those who have been in contact with primates, specifically to avoid potentially passing on these diseases.
3) Not quite on point: Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD):
Chronic Wasting Disease comes from deer and elk, is a fatal disease, and is prominent in the American west. The symptoms include "weight loss over weeks or months, behavioral changes, excessive salivation, difficulty swallowing, polydipsia, and polyuria and in some animals, ataxia and head tremors may occur. Most animals with the disease die within several months of illness onset, sometimes from aspiration pneumonia."
The CDC has mixed data on this, although from their reports, it appears that something like CWD (probably a mutated human form) has infected and killed humans, particularly those who hunt and eat deer and their kin.
I feel okay including this here b.c. tests that involved shooting monkeys full of CWD resulted in them developing related fatal symptoms, although they could not be called CWD, per se. It reiterates that disease can, and does, travel from other animals to primates and as it is already established that inter-primate transmission is possible, this is relevant.
4) Monkeys and Yellow Fever:
This isn't so much their fault and involves another party, but monkeys are considered to be the source of one form of yellow fever, which is carried to humans via the aedes mosquito.
Basically, the topic I'm on here, a particular pet peeve for me, are zoonotic diseases. To get you started, here is a sense of how serious this problem is and how little press it gets. Thinking logically about it, diseases are designed to infect whatever they can to spread themselves - natural instinct. They don't care what species you are. Problem being that if a species isn't exposed to something, it is much more vulnerable to very serious outcomes as it doesn't possess the necessary antibodies, see current scare over bird flu. So this is a, be conscientious, post.
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