Ben Ciccati

Industrial Meat Production Threatens Human and Environmental Health

Eating Ourselves to Death

Thursday, August 30, 2007

By Joshua Daniel Hershfield, Santa Barbara native and student of environmental studies.

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Industrial meat production began in the early 1900s when livestock raised on open ranges in the western U.S. were shipped to slaughterhouses on the East Coast. In the 1980s, meat plants went rural, and big-time producers, led by Iowa Beef Packers Inc. (IBP), automated and accelerated the process to boost profit. Since then, factory farms, also known as Confined Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs), have become the norm, replacing small farms as the way most people get their meat and dairy. CAFOs rely on hazardous working conditions and unsanitary methods, causing health problems and environmental degradation.

Factory farming consumes resources at an alarming rate. One calorie of beef expends 33 percent more fossil fuels than one calorie of potatoes. And in the U.S., 70 percent of corn is fed to livestock, while worldwide, 80 percent of soybeans are used for animal feed. Livestock are meant to eat grass. But in the industrial system, their feed is not meant to nourish, but to cause animals to gain weight. As fisheries plummet and millions of people suffer from malnourishment, roughly one-third of the global fish harvest is fed to livestock.

Factory farming also devours and contaminates water. It takes roughly 25,000 liters of water to produce eight ounces of beef, and the meat industry pollutes more groundwater than all other industries combined. CAFOs also contribute to land degradation. In just 10 years, an area in the Amazon rainforest twice the size of Portugal has been destroyed to pasture cattle for slaughter.

Then there’s the human cost. Every year, one in three meatpacking workers is reportedly injured on the job. (Because many are undocumented immigrants, injuries often go unreported, so the actual number is undoubtedly higher.) Most prominent injuries are lost limbs and gashed hands and arms. Furthermore, animal waste emits notable amounts of ammonia, hydrogen sulfate, methane, and particulate matter from fecal dust, all of which can make its way into human lungs. A February 2002 study out of Iowa State and University of Iowa found that 70 percent of U.S. factory farm workers suffer from acute bronchitis. Mental health is also affected, due to the toxic atmosphere and the stress of having to gut 60 animals every hour.

Consumers of meat produced in factory farms are threatened by diseases such as avian flu, mad cow disease, foot-and-mouth disease, and bacterial illnesses. Cattle are kept in cramped crates in piles of feces where E. coli flourishes. Since the slaughtering process is so quick and careless, these bacteria are carried onto the flesh. It can also contaminate flesh through spillage from the intestines.

Manure from industrial farms is inherently toxic due to the use of chemical pesticides, antibiotics, and hormones. Every year, American factory farms generate 600 million tons of nitrogen from manure, which makes its way into the soil, rivers, ocean, and drinking water. A synopsis of a Senate Agricultural Committee report on farm pollution states about animal waste: “It’s untreated and unsanitary, bubbling with chemicals and diseased organisms. … Catastrophic cases of pollution, sickness, and death are occurring in areas where livestock operations are concentrated.” Instances of brain damage, depression, neurological disorders, miscarriages, asthma, bronchitis, and birth defects abound in communities surrounding factory farms, due to the pollutants released into the air, earth, and water.

Because antibiotics and antimicrobials cause animals to gain weight, these drugs are used consistently in factory farms, generating resistant strains of bacteria. The U.S. General Accounting Office states: “Antibiotic-resistant bacteria have been transferred from animals to humans, and many studies we reviewed found this transference poses significant risks for human health.” One of numerous examples of resistant bacteria linked to factory farming is the 1998 strain of salmonella that infected a Nebraska boy and was resistant to 13 antibiotics. The European Union has banned all growth-promoting uses of antibiotics in animals; the U.S. has not.

Regulations do exist, but they are minimal and largely ignored, both by companies and the government agencies that are supposed to monitor them. According to the Center for Public Integrity, “The meat industry has created one of Washington’s most effective influence machines. … From filling lawmakers’ campaign coffers to plying them with all-expenses-paid trips and dangling the possibility of lucrative post-employment opportunities, the meat interests have overwhelmed the supposedly objective decision-making process in Washington.” Industrialized meat production is now taking over much of the developing world as big meat corporations move production to countries with even fewer regulations and cheaper labor, such as China, India, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Thailand.

Worldwatch sums it up best: “Factory farming is an inefficient, ecologically disruptive, dangerous, and inhumane way of making meat.” Beginning in 2001, even the World Bank stopped funding large-scale factory farms in developing countries, not because of labor rights or environmental sustainability, but because factory farming methods are too costly.

Once a sustainable, holistic practice, raising animals for food has become a monster under the influence of big business — one that devours resources, tortures animals, abuses workers, sickens people, and ransacks the earth. It matters how we treat animals. It affects our physical and emotional health and the health of this planet. We are not alone in this world. Cows, chickens, and pigs all share the earth with us. It is high time we showed some common sense, and a flair for survival, and decided to share it with them as well.

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Discussion Guidelines

Table 1. Animal feed ingredients that are legally used in U.S. animal feeds

Animal

Rendered animal protein from Meat meal, meat meal tankage, meat and bone
meal, poultry meal, animal the slaughter of food by-product meal, dried
animal blood, blood meal, feather meal, egg-shell production animals and
other meal, hydrolyzed whole poultry, hydrolyzed hair, bone marrow, and
animal animals digest from dead, dying, diseased, or disabled animals
including deer and elk Animal waste Dried ruminant waste, dried swine waste,
dried poultry litter, and undried processed animal waste products

snip...

Conclusions

Sapkota et al.
668 VOLUME 115 | NUMBER 5 | May 2007 • Environmental Health Perspectives

http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/picrend...

Re: Colorado Surveillance Program for Chronic Wasting Disease
Transmission to Humans (TWO SUSPECT CASES)

http://lists.ifas.ufl.edu/cgi-bin/wa.exe...

snip...full text ;

http://lists.ifas.ufl.edu/cgi-bin/wa.exe...

MAD COW BASE H-TYPE AND L-TYPE

Date: August 23, 2007 at 11:30 am PST

http://lists.ifas.ufl.edu/cgi-bin/wa.exe...

From: "Terry S. Singeltary Sr." <flounder9@VERIZON.NET>
Sent: Tuesday, August 21, 2007 9:50 AM
Subject: TWO MORE Nor98 atypical Scrapie cases detected in USA bringing
total to 3 cases to date

Infected and Source Flocks

As of June 30, 2007, there were .....

snip...

One field case and one validation case were consistent with Nor-98 scrapie.

http://www.aphis.usda.gov/animal_health/...

IN the February 2007 Scrapie report it only mentions ;

''One case was consistent with Nor98 scrapie.''

http://www.aphis.usda.gov/animal_health/...

(please note flocks of origin were in WY, CO, AND CA. PERSONAL COMMUNCATIONS
USDA, APHIS, VS ET AL. ...TSS)

NOR98 SHOWS MOLECULAR FEATURES REMINISCENT OF GSS

http://lists.ifas.ufl.edu/cgi-bin/wa.exe...

An evaluation of scrapie surveillance in the United States

http://lists.ifas.ufl.edu/cgi-bin/wa.exe...

FOIA REQUEST FOR ATYPICAL TSE INFORMATION ON VERMONT SHEEP

http://lists.ifas.ufl.edu/cgi-bin/wa.exe...

SEAC New forms of Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy 1 August 2007
From: Terry S. Singeltary Sr.
Date: Sun, 5 Aug 2007 13:09:38 -0500

http://lists.ifas.ufl.edu/cgi-bin/wa.exe...

POTENTIAL MAD CAT ESCAPES LAB IN USA

http://lists.ifas.ufl.edu/cgi-bin/wa.exe...

Terry S. Singeltary Sr.
P.O. Box 42
Bacliff, Texas USA 77518

flounder (anonymous profile)
August 30, 2007 at 7:05 a.m. (Suggest removal)

Defense opens case
Cattlemen vs. Oprah Winfrey

By CHIP CHANDLER
Globe-News Staff Writer

snip...

Van Smith, a reporter with City Paper in Baltimore, testified about an
article he wrote on rendering plants. Smith said he saw sheep taken to a
plant despite a voluntary ban on using processed sheep in
protein-enhanced feed, backing up a statement Lyman made on Winfrey's show.

Under cross-examination, Smith said he was not sure whether the sheep
were used for feed or other animal-derived products.

snip...

Under cross-examination, Smith said he was not sure whether the sheep
were used for feed or other animal-derived products.

http://www.amarillonet.com/ns-search/sto...

Web posted Wednesday, February 18, 1998 2:02 p.m. CT

Graphic pictures greet Winfrey jury

By KAY LEDBETTER
Globe-News Farm and Ranch Editor

Pictures of sheep heads, euthanized pets and roadkill greeted jurors
this morning as they returned to the continuation of the cattlemen vs.
Oprah Winfrey lawsuit.

The lawsuit continues today in U.S. District Mary Lou Robinson's court,
but in a much diminished state.

snip...

Defense lawyer Charles Babcock called Van Smith, a City Paper reporter
from Baltimore who had written an article on rendering plants in
September 1995.

Smith and Babcock went through more than 50 pictures taken as the
reporter toured the Valley Proteins plant in Baltimore and followed a
rendering truck to the local animal shelter, a sausage plant and a
slaughterhouse.

The pictures showed offal being emptied from the slaughterhouses. They
showed animal shelter workers in the euthanasia room; barrels of dead
animals in a refrigerated room at the animal shelter; waste meat from
the sausage plant; and dead sheep from the slaughterhouse.

http://www.amarillonet.com/stories/02189...

flounder (anonymous profile)
August 30, 2007 at 7:08 a.m. (Suggest removal)

Web posted Friday, January 23, 1998 5:49 a.m. CT

TSS

Witness testifies some ill cattle sent to rendering plant

By CHIP CHANDLER
Globe-News Staff Writer

snip...

Mike Engler -- son of Paul Engler, the original plaintiff and owner of
Cactus Feeders Inc. -- agreed that more than 10 cows with some sort of
central nervous system disorder were sent to Hereford By-Products.

The younger Engler, who has a doctorate in biochemistry from Johns
Hopkins University, was the only witness jurors heard Thursday in the
Oprah Winfrey defamation trial. His testimony will resume this morning.

According to a U.S. Department of Agriculture report from which Winfrey
attorney Charles Babcock quoted, encephalitis caused by unknown reasons
could be a warning sign for bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or mad cow
disease.

Encephalitis was indicated on the death certificates -- or ``dead
slips'' -- of three Cactus Feeders cows discussed in court. The slips
then were stamped, ``Picked up by your local used cattle dealer'' before
the carcasses were taken to the rendering plant.

snip...

http://www.amarillonet.com/ns-search/sto...

TSS

flounder (anonymous profile)
August 30, 2007 at 7:09 a.m. (Suggest removal)

http://info.sen.ca.gov/pub/03-04/bill/se...

http://info.sen.ca.gov/pub/05-06/bill/se...

* GAO-05-51 October 2004 FOOD SAFETY (over 500 customers receiving
potentially BSE contaminated beef) - TSS 10/20/04

October 2004 FOOD SAFETY
USDA and FDA Need
to Better Ensure
Prompt and Complete
Recalls of Potentially
Unsafe Food

snip...

REPORTS

1. Food Safety: USDA and FDA Need to Better Ensure Prompt and Complete
Recalls of Potentially Unsafe Food. GAO-05-51, October 7.tss

http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-05...

Highlights -

http://www.gao.gov/highlights/d0551high....

TSS

flounder (anonymous profile)
August 30, 2007 at 7:12 a.m. (Suggest removal)

Because of the price of real estate in southern California, there will never be enough land to support a locally-raised grass fed/pasture raised meat industry. I'm so glad the state of California sent me to live with my dad where most of diet is grass-fed animals and organic produce. At least I know I'm not contributing to the problem.

jessica_jones (anonymous profile)
September 5, 2007 at 11:40 a.m. (Suggest removal)

Thank you for this fact filled article.The atrocities of the U.S. meat industry have been documented for years, and yet Americans continue to demand cheap meat products, viewing organically raised, grass fed animals as a yuppie luxury.

Perhaps if we all ate organically grown meat only once a week, which would most likely fulfill our protein and vitamin needs, and paid the up front costs for grass fed cattle, free range chickens, and so forth, we would all have healthier lives, live on a healthier planet and have a healthy conscience--not to mention the long term savings of reduced medical expenses and environmental clean up related to CAFO business as usual.

sbmama (anonymous profile)
September 5, 2007 at 9:21 p.m. (Suggest removal)

PRION2007 ABSTRACTS SPORADIC CJD AND H BASE MAD COW ALABAMA AND TEXAS
SEPTEMBER 2007

Date: Mon, 24 Sep 2007 21:31:55 -0500

I suggest that you all read the data out about h-BASE and sporadic CJD, GSS,
blood, and some of the other abstracts from the PRION2007. ...

http://lists.ifas.ufl.edu/cgi-bin/wa.exe...

USA BASE CASE, (ATYPICAL BSE), AND OR TSE (whatever they are calling it
today), please note that both the ALABAMA COW, AND THE TEXAS COW, both were
''H-TYPE'', personal communication Detwiler et al Wednesday, August 22, 2007
11:52 PM. ...TSS

http://lists.ifas.ufl.edu/cgi-bin/wa.exe...

see full text 143 pages ;

http://www.prion2007.com/pdf/Prion%20Boo...

Terry S. Singeltary Sr. Bacliff, Texas

flounder (anonymous profile)
September 26, 2007 at 7:19 a.m. (Suggest removal)

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Industrial Meat Production Threatens Human and Environmental Health

Thursday, August 30, 2007

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