It's more than a meme, but documented by research. Some citations: https://doi.org/10.1126/science.abn2222 https://doi.org/10.1126/science.abn2222 > The key i

It's more than a meme, but documented by research. Some citations: https://doi.org/10.1126/science.abn2222 https://doi.org/10.1126/science.abn2222 > The key issue, then, is not that zoonotic diseases appear in humans, but that their emergence seems to be increasing in frequency (3). Major changes in land use, increasing urbanization, and global connectedness are well documented as driving disease emergence through increasing human–animal contacts and accelerating transmission rates, and climate change will similarly accelerate the rate of zoonotic events. It's not a paper in itself but it says what I've been saying above way more eloquently. It also cites this paper: https://doi.org/10.1038/nature06536 https://doi.org/10.1038/nature06536 > Here we analyse a database of 335 EID ‘events’ (origins of EIDs) between 1940 and 2004, and demonstrate non-random global patterns. EID events have risen significantly over time after controlling for reporting bias, with their peak incidence (in the 1980s) concomitant with the HIV pandemic. EID events are dominated by zoonoses (60.3% of EIDs): the majority of these (71.8%) originate in wildlife (for example, severe acute respiratory virus, Ebola virus), and are increasing significantly over time. Lastly, some other recent research: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-022-29378-2 https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-022-29378-2