- Hello Jeff - Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFO)
are extremely cruel and just short of waterboarding. These operations
not only torture the animals but also pose the risk of transmitting diseases
and pollute the environment.
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- As is described below, "In the U.S. it has been
reported there is as much as 500 million tons per year of animal waste
from these large agricultural operations. 68 Fed. Reg. 7176, 7180 (2003)
Substantial quantities of toxic chemicals such as ammonia and hydrogen
sulfide as well as nitrogen oxide are released from the manure."
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- I would not be surprised to learn that the Mexican Flu
strain might have its origin at the CAFO Granjas Carroll. Proving a connection
and any pollition from the facility will be difficult but there will always
be people in the town of La Gloria who will remain convinced that the manure
lagoons contanimated their town and the towns drinking water thus enabling
an Influenza virus to develop.
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- Factory farming livestock really needs to end, it is
cruel and it is unhealthy for the community of man.
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- Patty
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- Swine Flu, Infant Mortality Rates and Factory
Farms
- AnimalCoalition.com
- 5-5-9
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- As of this writing, in Mexico 152 people are dead and
more than 2000 are ill ostensibly from a swine flu outbreak. There are
50 confirmed cases across the U.S. in New York, Texas, California, Kansas,
and Ohio, more than double since last Friday.
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- From what can be determined, initially, the outbreak
in the U.S. occurred in people who just returned from Mexico or who were
close to recent travelers to that country. In fact, schools closed to
try to contain the outbreaks among students returning from trips to Mexico.
Travel advisories were issued.
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- But the World Health Organization reports the disease
has begun to spread beyond recent travelers to Mexico. Other cases are
reported in Canada, Spain, France, Scotland, Israel, New Zealand, and South
Korea.
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- This strain of swine flu has not been confined to the
very young or elderly but has afflicted people of all ages.
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- The World Health Organization has issued a phase 4 alert,
meaning there is sustained human-to-human transmission of the virus causing
outbreaks in at least one country. It is also a warning of a deadly global
pandemic. Both WHO and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
have declared a public health emergency.
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- Some Mexican officials and residents are linking the
current outbreak of swine flu to Granjas Carrol in Perote, Mexico which
is in the state of Vera Cruz. Granjas Carrol operates concentrated animal
feeding operations for hogs, CAFOs, factory farms, owned by Smithfield
Pork.
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- These operations in Mexico alone raised 950,000 hogs
for slaughter in 2008. The hogs are jammed together 24/7 with barely room
to move. Sows are kept continuously confined in gestation crates where
they cannot move, let alone stretch or turn around.
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- Biosurveillance reports, "Residents [of Perote]
believe[] the outbreak [was]... caused by contamination from large pig
breeding farms located in the area. They believe[] that the farms, operated
by Granjas Carroll, polluted the atmosphere and local water bodies, which
in turn led to the disease outbreak".
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- Residents have reported terrible odors and swarming flies.
According to a local official, the swine flu may have been spread initially
by a fly that reproduces in pig waste. Mexico's Health Minister, Jose
Angel Cordova, said the virus "mutated from pigs, and then at some
point was transmitted to humans." The chairperson of the Veracruz
legislature's Committee on the Environment, Marco Antonio Núñez
López, described hog as well as poultry farms as "hot spots"
for infection. The legislature has initiated an investigation of Smithfield
Pork operations.
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- Hundreds of hogs that may have had the swine flu have
now been killed at a factory farm in the Mexican state of Guerrero.
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- At least 2 Mexican newspapers, La Jornada and La Marcha,
point the finger at Granjas Carroll.
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- At this time there has been no epidemiological study
linking factory farms in Mexico to this swine flu outbreak.
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- U.S. CAFOs
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- In the U.S. cruel, intensive confinement of hogs is also
generally legal though California, Colorado, Arizona, Florida and Oregon
have banned the use of gestation crates to confine pregnant sows.
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- The waste from animals held in CAFOs is also untreated;
it is typically placed in manure pits, stockpiles or "lagoons"
and later spread onto land. In the U.S. it has been reported there is as
much as 500 million tons per year of animal waste from these large agricultural
operations. 68 Fed. Reg. 7176, 7180 (2003) Substantial quantities of toxic
chemicals such as ammonia and hydrogen sulfide as well as nitrogen oxide
are released from the manure.
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- In the U.S. the EPA is supposed to regulate animal feeding
operations (AFO) and concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFO) through
National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permits.
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- An AFO means animals are confined for at least 45 days
in a 12-month period and there is no grass or other vegetation in the confinement
area during the normal growing season.
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- A CAFO is an AFO that is designated as small, medium
or large depending on the number of animals by type. A large CAFO is a
CAFO because of the large number of confined animals. A medium CAFO is
a CAFO not only because of the number of animals but also because:
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- (1) pollutants are discharged into waters of the United
States through a man-made ditch, flushing system, or other similar man-made
device; or
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- (2) pollutants are discharged directly into waters of
the United States which originate outside of and pass over, across, or
through the facility or otherwise come into direct contact with the animals
confined in the operation.40 CFR 122.21, .23, .42, .46; 40 CFR 412.1-47
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- A small CAFO is basically an agricultural operation that
has been designated as a CAFO because it is a significant contributor of
pollutants. 40 CFR 122.21, .23, .42, .46; 40 CFR 412.1-47
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- All CAFOs are supposed to obtain NPDES permits if they
discharge or propose to discharge pollutants into U.S. waters as described.
Unpermitted CAFOs can voluntarily obtain a certification that they do
not discharge and do not propose to do so. A nutrient management plan
for manure is now required as part of a NPDES permit application. 40 CFR
122.21, .23, .42, .46; 40 CFR 412.1-47
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- There is no limit on the number of animals for CAFOs.
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- Enforcement has been largely non-existent or left to
the states. But some of these regulations are new, and EPA claims these
recent "CAFO regulations will prevent 56 million pounds of phosphorus,
110 million pounds of nitrogen, and 2 billion pounds of sediment from entering
streams, lakes, and other waters annually." More and more states have
their own regulations partly because EPA rules only apply to discharges
in federal waters.
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- These federal regulations do not address violations of
the Clean Air Act, 42 U.S.C. §7401 et seq. CAFOs have been given a
pass on Clean Air Act compliance.
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- Did animal cruelty help cause this swine flu?
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- At least one third of the people living in the area of
Granjas Carroll currently have symptoms of upper respiratory disease. One
child is infected with the swine flu, and authorities are exhuming bodies
of other children who have died recently.
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- This is also a new strain of swine flu, a reassortment
or combination of human, avian and 2 forms of swine flu, American and Eurasian.
Unlike previous swine flu outbreaks, this deadly strain appears to be passed
easily by casual human contact.
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- Last year the Pew Commission on Industrial Farm Animal
Production warned:
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- The continual cycling of swine influenza viruses
and other animal pathogens in large herds or flocks provides increased
opportunity for the generation of novel viruses through mutation or recombinant
events that could result in more efficient human-to-human transmission
of these viruses.
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- In addition, agricultural workers serve as a bridging
population between their communities and the animals in large confinement
facilities. This bridging increases the risk of novel virus generation
in that human viruses may enter the herds or flocks and adapt to the animals.
...
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- Recent modeling work has shown that among communities
where a large number of CAFO workers live, there is great potential for
these workers to accelerate pandemic influenza virus transmission.
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- Pigs cruelly packed together in CAFOs make particularly
good breeding grounds for increasingly virulent strains of swine flu. Viruses
often jump easily from hogs to humans. In addition to the flies, the recycled
wastewater used in many hog CAFOs can increase the likelihood of avian
flu genes finding their way into the mix, making the flu all the more virulent
as it is then passed to CAFO workers. Birds and people can spread these
deadly strains quickly. Also, pigs as well as animal products, including
pork, waste, offal and feed are transported the world over, possible carriers
of swine flu.
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- Dr. Michael Greger, Director of Public Health & Animal
Agriculture for the Humane Society of the United States, reminds that the
first triple reassortment swine flu virus, a combination of pig, human
and avian flu genes, occurred in 1998 at a North Carolina factory hog farm.
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- It was during the 1990s that small family hog farms gave
way to factory farms that now confine thousands of pigs at one time.
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- Indeed, a number of experts have attributed these increasingly
virulent, deadly flus to intensive confinement of pigs in CAFOs.
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- Studies point to CAFOs as the source of other, often
deadly diseases and abnormalities
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- In a recent study published in the American Journal of
Agricultural Economics by Wellesley College Professor Stacy Sneeringer,
increases in infant mortality are attributable to CAFOs.
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- The study examined the impact of CAFOs on infant mortality
from 1982 to 1997 and found that for a 100,000 animal increase in a county,
there were 123 more infant deaths under the age of one per 100,000 births
and 100 more infant deaths under the age of 28 days per 100,000 births.
As well, the research suggests that a doubling of animal production induces
a 7.4% increase in infant mortality.
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- The reason? Air pollution from ammonia and hydrogen sulfide.
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- The Pew Commission on Industrial Farm Animal Production
indicated in the 2008 report "[w]orkers in and neighbors of [these
CAFOs] experience high levels of respiratory problems, including asthma."
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- Other studies have found CAFO workers or people living
in the vicinity of these factory farms also suffer impaired lung function,
sinusitis, bronchitis, headaches and other flu symptoms, diarrhea, burning
eyes, depression, fatigue and early death.
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- This does not include the innumerable diseases and conditions
including spontaneous abortion and developmental disabilities, kidney failure,
gasteroenteritis, and death attributed to contamination of ground water
used for drinking by animal waste from CAFOs. (Not to mention the contamination
of waterways from discharges and spills of manure and ensuing death of
fish and other aquatic life.)
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- Conclusion
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- Clearly, the cruelty and waste of factory farming has
raised infant mortality rates, an indicator of a country's standard of
living, and is causing illness, if not death, among people of all ages.
Now it may have caused a deadly, global pandemic.
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- Agriculture used to be America's sacred cow, so to speak,
the beloved family farm an icon of our culture and history. Now, it has
morphed into "agri-business", no longer content to feed America,
and instead motivated solely by profit. They profit from animal cruelty
and lax or even non-existent regulation that is causing illness and death,
not to mention damage to the environment and wildlife. The genious of Madison
Avenue has been that they have convinced the public they want to continue
to consume pork and other animal products regardless.
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- _____________________________
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- Studies demonstrating illness and death attributable
to CAFOs: Iowa State University and The University of Iowa Study Group,
Iowa Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations Air Quality Study, at 121 (Feb.
2002); Steve Wing and Susanne Wolf, "Intensive Livestock Operations,
Health, and Quality of Life Along Eastern North Carolina Residents,"
Environmental Health Perspectives, Vol. 108, No. 3, (March 2000); Kendall
Thu, et. al, "A Control Study of the Physical and Mental Health of
Residents Living Near a Large-Scale Swine Operation," Journal of Agricultural
Safety and Health, 3(1):13-26 (1997), p. 1-11; Susan Schiffman, et al.,
"The Effect of Environmental Odors Emanating From Commercial Swine
Operations on the Mood of Nearby Residents," Brain Research Bulletin,
Vol. 37, No. 4, 369-75 (1995); U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, "California's
Dairy Quality Assurance Program, Fact Sheet" (September 1999), p.
2; U.S. EPA, The Report of the EPA/State Feedlot Workgroup, Office of Wastewater
Enforcement and Compliance, September 1993; "Spontaneous Abortions
Possibly Related to Ingestion of Nitrate-Contaminated Well Water-LaGrange
County, Indiana 1991-1994," Morbidity and Mortality Weekly, Report
26, Centers for Disease Control (July 5, 1996) pp. 569-71.
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- Patricia A. Doyle DVM, PhD Bus Admin, Tropical Agricultural
Economics Univ of West Indies Please visit my "Emerging Diseases"
message board at: http://www.emergingdisease.org/phpbb/index.php Also my
new website: http://drpdoyle.tripod.com/ Zhan le Devlesa tai sastimasa
Go with God and in Good Health
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- http://www.animallawcoalition.com/farm-animals/article/902
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