The "we're all gonna die" story of the day

The UKIndependent has a story about "bush meat" (i.e. monkey meat) and disease.

It was never made clear to Americans how HIV jumped to humans, but this is the probable link.

But there are other viruses out there that could do the same, and the bad news is that there is a huge underground market for "bush meat" in Europe.

The Washington-based Bush Meat Crisis Task Force estimates that up to five million tons of wild animals are being "harvested" in the Congo Basin every year – the equivalent of 10 million cattle. The trade was initially driven by hunger – it was a cheap source of food – but has burgeoned with increased logging of the forests and growing demand.
Now, it is international, extending the threat beyond the continent's boundaries. Scientists have warned that Britain is at risk from an outbreak caused by the lethal Ebola or Marburg viruses contained in illegal imports of bush meat from Africa.

not to mention Monkey pox...

and ironically, the CDC says that most cases in the US have come from pet Prairie dogs....

How was monkeypox introduced in the United States?
Traceback investigations have implicated a shipment of animals from Ghana that was imported to Texas on April 9 as the probable source of introduction of monkeypox virus into the United States. The shipment contained approximately 800 small mammals of nine different species, including six genera of African rodents. These rodents included rope squirrels (Funiscuirus sp.), tree squirrels (Heliosciurus sp.), Gambian giant rats (Cricetomys sp.), brush-tailed porcupines (Atherurus sp.), dormice (Graphiurus sp.), and striped mice (Hybomys sp.).
Gambian rats from this shipment were kept in close proximity to prairie dogs at an Illinois animal vendor implicated in the sale of infected prairie dogs.