The Hidden Health Hazards of Factory Farms

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Current factory farm methods of raising livestock are creating health hazards: they encourage salmonella and other virulent microbes to develop antibiotic resistance.
Current factory farm methods of raising livestock are creating health hazards: they encourage salmonella and other virulent microbes to develop antibiotic resistance.
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A culture of E. coli, one disease-causing microbe whose virulence is linked to conditions on cattle feedlots.
A culture of E. coli, one disease-causing microbe whose virulence is linked to conditions on cattle feedlots.
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Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, aka MRSA, has been linked to intensive pig farming.
Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, aka MRSA, has been linked to intensive pig farming.
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The unsanitary and stressful conditions in many industrial livestock operations are breeding new diseases faster than ever before. Even in relatively clean conditions, the large number of animals crowded together can help spread disease.
The unsanitary and stressful conditions in many industrial livestock operations are breeding new diseases faster than ever before. Even in relatively clean conditions, the large number of animals crowded together can help spread disease.
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Lagoons used to collect the manure from the feedlot. Concentrated animal feeding operations create severe pollution because they cannot recycle the huge amounts of manure they produce.
Lagoons used to collect the manure from the feedlot. Concentrated animal feeding operations create severe pollution because they cannot recycle the huge amounts of manure they produce.
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Consumer demand can change how meat is produced. Seek out meat from local farmers practicing humane, sustainable methods.
Consumer demand can change how meat is produced. Seek out meat from local farmers practicing humane, sustainable methods.

You may be familiar with many of the problems associated with concentrated animal feeding operations, or CAFOs. These “factory farm” operations are often criticized for the smell and water pollution caused by all that concentrated manure; the unnatural, grain-heavy diets the animals consume; and the stressful, unhealthy conditions in which the animals live. You may not be aware, however, of the health hazards such facilities pose for you and your family — even if you never buy any of the meat produced in this manner.

Factory farms are breeding grounds for virulent disease, which can then spread to the wider community via many routes — not just in food, but also in water, the air, and the bodies of farmers, farm workers, and their families. Once those microbes become widespread in the environment, it’s very difficult to get rid of them.

A 2008 report from the Pew Commission on Industrial Farm Animal Production, a joint project of the Pew Charitable Trusts and the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, underscores those risks. The 111-page report, two years in the making, outlines the public health, environmental, animal welfare, and rural livelihood consequences of what they call “industrial farm animal production.” Its conclusions couldn’t be clearer. Factory farm production is intensifying worldwide, and rates of new infectious diseases are rising. Of particular concern is the rapid rise of antibiotic-resistant microbes, an inevitable consequence of the widespread use of antibiotics as feed additives in industrial livestock operations.

Scientists, medical personnel, and public health officials have been sounding the alarm on these issues for some time. The World Health Organization and the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) have recommended restrictions on agricultural uses of antibiotics; the American Public Health Association (APHA) proposed a moratorium on CAFOs back in 2003. All told, more than 350 professional organizations — including the APHA, American Medical Association, the Infectious Diseases Society of America, and the American Academy of Pediatrics — have called for greater regulation of antibiotic use in livestock. The Infectious Diseases Society of America has declared antibiotic-resistant infections an epidemic in the United States. The FAO recently warned that global industrial meat production poses a serious threat to human health.

The situation is akin to that surrounding global climate change four or five years ago: near-universal scientific consensus matched by government inaction and media inattention. Although the specter of pandemic flu — in which a virulent strain of the influenza virus recombines with a highly contagious strain to create a bug rivaling that responsible for the 1918 flu pandemic, thought to have killed as many as 50 million people — is the most dire scenario, antibiotic resistance is a clear and present danger, already killing thousands of people in the United States each year.

  • Published on Jan 13, 2009
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