Support the Mink VIRUS Act to end mink fur farming and protect public health in the US

Mink farming sees thousands of stressed wild animals crammed together in deplorable conditions. It's cruel, inhumane, and a real risk to public health. 

Intensive farming of animals creates incubators and reservoirs of disease. Avian flu, the H5N1 virus, was found on a mink farm in Spain and more than 50,000 mink were killed and their bodies destroyed. Although the H5N1 virus has not been known to spread well among mammals (people typically get infected from birds), the virus is now spreading through mink and has at least one mutation increasing mammal-to-mammal spread. H5N1 has just been confirmed in the animals of five fur farms in Finland.  

Mink farmed for their fur are highly susceptible to COVID-19 and can pass a mutated form of the virus back to humans. The COVID-19 virus infected mink on farms, and virologists warn that this latest H5N1 outbreak could happen at other mink farms and evolve to become more transmissible among mammals. Foxes, cats, ferrets, seals, dolphins and even bears have been infected. In the latest wave, there have been six human infections, including one death.

WHY LET THIS CRUEL PRACTICE CONTINUE PUTTING US AT RISK?

Fur farming has already been banned in many countries because it is so cruel. Many retailers and major fashion houses have dropped fur leaving fur production in steady economic decline. It's time for a US ban. Let's not sleepwalk into another pandemic because some people indulge by adorning themselves in dead animals.

Thank you Congressman Adriano Espaillat for introducing the Mink VIRUS Act (HR3783), which would end mink fur farming after a one-year phaseout period, and establish a grant program to help mink farmers transition out of the industry. It would also protect taxpayer dollars, currently used to prop up a cruel industry already in decline.

Help mink while protecting public health.

Please urge your Congress members to support HR3783.