According to a 2000 study, people living close to a 6,000 head swine operation in North Carolina reported "increased occurrences of headaches, runny nose, sore throat, excessive coughing, diarrhea, and burning eyes." These complaints are similar to those reported by people who work in confinement swine operations.
Factory farming may increase profitability for corporate owners, but it can erode the health and quality of life of farm workers and members of the surrounding community.read more »
One of the problems with raising large numbers of animals in confinement is that disease is more common, resulting in a greater reliance on antibiotics. Over time, the bacteria mutate and become resistant to the drugs. When we humans become infected with these antibiotic-resistant bacteria, there are fewer effective medications available to treat us.read more »
Early in March, 2002, Russia imposed a ban on the importation of all poultry from the United States. Vladimir Fisinin, vice president of the Russian Academy of Agricultural Sciences, explained his government's position in the March 20th issue of The Moscow Times: "I would like to note that American farmers are injecting chickens with antibiotics used to treat people. This is prohibited in Russia." According to Fisinin, US poultry producers use such large doses of these drugs that they accumulate in the tissues of the birds.read more »
Infected poultry are now being treated with Baytril, a drug very similar to the anthrax-fighting antibiotic Cipro. The FDA, health advocates, and an editorial in The New England Journal of Medicine have all urged Bayer, the producer, to withdraw the drug from the poultry industry. Bayer, veterinarians, and commercial poultry producers are in strong opposition. If Baytril is withdrawn, they argue, the United States will have to alter its poultry-raising practices.read more »
According to a recent edition of the New England Journal of Medicine, pigs raised in factory farms in Taiwan are harboring a dangerous type of salmonella that has become resistant to one of our newest and most potent antibiotics—fluoroquinolone, a drug that is critical to human medicine. When people become infected with this resistant strain, doctors will have few drugs in their arsenal to combat it.read more »
The Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) report that about 70 percent of all antibiotics made in the United States now go to fattening up livestock. In the mid-1980s, 16 million pounds of antibiotics were used in livestock production. Twenty-five million pounds are being used today. This ever increasing use is contributing to the creation of antibiotic-resistant bacteria. According to the UCS, more than 95 percent of a common bacteria called Staphylococcus aureus is now resistant to penicillin, requiring the use of newer and stronger drugs.read more »
In 1998, researchers Diez-Gonzalez and colleagues from Cornell University drew worldwide attention when they reported that switching cattle from grain to grass lowered the production of acid-resistant E. coli bacteria. Acid-resistant E. coli are believed to be much more difficult for humans to combat. The fact that keeping animals on pasture might protect consumers from E. coli was very good news, indeed.read more »
In response to growing public concern over Mad Cow Disease, the American Meat Institute is proposing a new certification program. Under this voluntary program, cattle marketers would certify that "to the best of my knowledge" their animals were not fed protein derived from mammalian tissues. J. Patrick Boyle, president of the AMI said that "We want to reassure ...read more »
E. coli contamination takes place in the slaughterhouse when manure from an animal comes in contact with meat. The less manure on an animal when it enters the slaughter house, the less likely the meat will become contaminated.read more »
The type of E. coli bacteria responsible for most cases of human illness and death is called "E. coli 0157:H7. Recently, calves that had tested positively for this deadly strain were divided into two groups. One was raised in a barn, and the other on pasture. Samples were taken once a month from April to September. The calves raised on pasture showed no signs of 0157:H7 for the entire period. Meanwhile, every one of the calves raised in pens had at least one positive sample.read more »
According to a recent edition of the New England Journal of Medicine, pigs raised in factory farms in Taiwan are harboring a dangerous type of salmonella that has become resistant to one of our newest and most potent antibiotics—fluoroquinolone, a drug that is critical to human medicine. When people become infected with this resistant strain, doctors will have few drugs in their arsenal to combat it.
