Another reason to go veggie!

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Report: Health risks outweigh farming cost cutsBy Elizabeth Weise, USA TODAY

http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2008-04-29-animal-farms_N.htmThe

way America produces meat, milk and eggs is unsustainable, creates

significant risks to public health from antibiotic resistance and

disease, damages the environment and unnecessarily harms animals, a

report released Tuesday says.Representing

two years of research by the Pew Commission on Industrial Farm Animal

Production, the report suggests ways to safeguard the safety and

stability of U.S. meat, milk and egg production. A joint project of the

non-profit Pew Charitable Trusts and the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School

of Public Health, it focuses on problems caused by a nationwide move to

large, industrial-style animal-feeding facilities.Making

the necessary changes to the system that puts food on America's tables

doesn't mean making meat, milk and eggs so expensive that people can't

afford to eat, says panel chairman John Carlin of Kansas State

University.BETTER LIFE: More 'food for thought'"We're

talking pennies. And when you factor in the positives from the

standpoint of public health and the environment, it would actually save

us money," he says.Meat,

milk and eggs have become cheaper in the years since the rise of

industrial animal farms. But those methods have come at a cost, the

report says. They include:•The use of low

levels of antibiotics in animal feed to boost growth rather than to

fight actual disease. This increases the possibility that

antibiotic-resistant strains of disease will surface in animals and

people. The report calls for restrictions on the use of drugs in the

raising of animals that will enter the food supply. It also seeks

improved monitoring of the food supply to detect the

antibiotic-resistant microbes.•Large,

confined feeding operations that bring together tens of thousands of

chickens, pigs or cattle. These produce enormous amounts of animal

waste that can foul water supplies, spread disease and cause

respiratory problems, including higher asthma rates in people working

and living nearby.New research is needed to

find ways to deal with the large quantities of concentrated animal

waste generated by these facilities, the report says.•The

report calls for a 10-year phaseout of troubling animal-farming

practices, including the use of crates that keep pregnant sows from

turning around and severely restrict sows' movements while nursing,

small battery cages for laying hens, the force-feeding of geese or duck

to produce foie gras (which is their fattened livers) and cutting the

tails of dairy cattle.Consumers can play an

important part by asking for more information about how the animals are

raised and slaughtered, Carlin says. "The food retail industry will

respond when consumers' expectations change," he says.Kay

Johnson Smith of the Animal Agriculture Alliance in Arlington, Va.,

said the report unfairly targeted large animal operations. "The

industry is very progressive in looking at how do we do things better,"

she says. Producers are already starting to make changes, "so why do we

need policy to make those changes?" Forcing change will result only in

more expensive food, she says.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Find this article at:

 

http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2008-04-29-animal-farms_N.htm

 

 

 

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