For while the FDA’s decision to curb the use of cephalosporins in food animal production beginning April 2012 has been hailed as positive step in the right direction, I’d say it’s more a shuffle forwards – and a very reluctant one at that.

“We believe this is an imperative step in preserving the effectiveness of this class of important antimicrobials that takes into account the need to protect the health of both humans and animals,” pronounced Michael R. Taylor, the FDA’s Deputy Commissioner for Foods, in the FDA press release. Now, as regular readers of my post will already know, I am passionate about the urgent need to curb the misuse of antibiotics in intensive farming systems. So what’s my problem with the FDA’s recent actions? After all, surely this is good news?

As various commentators – including Tom Philpott and Mary McKenna – have already pointed out, I am afraid that cephalosporins are nothing but small fry when it comes to overall antibiotic use in intensive farming. During 2009 alone, the FDA revealed that 80% of all antibiotics produced in the U.S. were used for animals – that’s an incredible 28,820,000 pounds out of the 36,080,000 pounds produced. Yet cephalosporins amounted to just over 91,000 pounds of this total – less than half of one percent of all antibiotics used in the U.S. The FDA’s latest figures also reveal that cephalosporin use has decreased even further during 2010 to just over 51,000 pounds. To make matters even worse, the FDA’s announcement is actually a (less strict) rehash of proposals that were first announced in 2008, and which were immediately recalled after the usual uproar from the intensive farming industry lobby.

So what’s the real outcome of the FDA’s recent action? Well, certainly some positive media fluff for the FDA for appearing to take a stand by banning a minor antibiotic that was clearly already losing favor within the industry, yet a minimal impact on the day-to-day workings of the intensive farming industry. A cozy coincidence? I wish it was.

This rather insignificant move forward comes after a pre-emptive giant leap backwards made on December 22, 2011, just as most of us were focusing on the upcoming holiday period. Notably without any accompanying press release or media fanfare in this instance, the FDA quietly announced in the Federal Register that it was withdrawing its long-standing intention to compel intensive farms to limit certain uses of the key antibiotics penicillin and tetracyclines for food-producing animals – an objective originally set in motion more than 30 years ago when government FDA scientists first began to fully appreciate the risks to human health from the laissez-faire non-therapeutic use of antibiotics in industrial farming.

We all know the story since then: over the years, the FDA has time and again cowed down to powerful political and legal pressure from the multi-billion dollar intensive farming industry lobby and its paid-up politicians, as antibiotic use in farming continued to spiral out of control in the pursuit of ever-cheaper protein and ever-increasing profit – not to mention the impact of intensification on animal welfare, our health and the environment. In its recent announcement the FDA warns that while it has not “ruled out” future regulatory action, it will instead “focus its efforts for now on the potential for voluntary reform and the promotion of the judicious use of antimicrobials in the interest of public health.” I bet Big Ag’s CEOs are quaking in their boots.

Voluntary reform? Call me a cynic but the FDA has got to be kidding. Despite decades of mounting evidence and the emergence of a global scientific consensus that the routine non-therapeutic use of medicinally important antibiotics on industrial farms across the world is leading to the development of life-threatening multiple antibiotic-resistant bacteria, the powerful U.S. intensive farming lobby continues to aggressively dismiss the science and deny any possible risks to human health – just as the tobacco industry did in the 1970s.

While the FDA’s announcement of limitations for the use of cephalosporins in food animal production might well be a small step in the right direction, the FDA continues to show that it has no teeth when it comes to ensuring that the intensive farming industry puts human health before profit, so that these vital medicines can remain effective for as long as possible. Even the Government Accountability Office recently concluded that key government agencies – including the FDA – are simply not doing enough to combat the growing threat of antibiotic resistant bacteria to public health, and that “antibiotic use in food animals contributes to the emergence of resistant bacteria that may affect humans.”  Far from being the proud industry watchdog working on behalf of U.S. citizens, the sad reality is that the FDA is happy to play the role of Big Ag’s lapdog.

We’ve seen it happen with organic, where some of the rules that farmers and food manufacturers must follow in order to use the coveted organic label have been watered down or manipulated. This has happened to such an extent that many well-meaning organic consumers would now struggle to differentiate between some larger ‘organic’ operations and their industrial cousins. The same thing is now happening with the term “grassfed.” While the range of products, labels and brands that make grassfed claims grows day by day, the sad reality is that some of the grassfed meat, milk and cheese you can buy probably shouldn’t be labeled grassfed at all.

Fortunately, Animal Welfare Approved has just published an 18-page booklet called The Grassfed Primer to cut through the confusion surrounding the term “grassfed” and to help the public to understand the wide benefits that real grassfed farming systems can have for the environment, for farm animal welfare, and for our health.

The good news is that people across the U.S. are waking up to the hidden costs of cheap, industrialized meat production and damaging impact that intensive farming is having on the environment, on animal welfare, and on our health. Growing numbers of consumers are voting with their wallets and seeking out truly sustainable alternatives – including grassfed meat and dairy products.

And they would be right to do so: Scientists have shown that grass-based farming systems, where livestock eat a diet of 100 percent grass or other forage throughout their lives and have constant access to pasture or range, are far better for animal welfare and are less likely to cause environmental pollution. We know that grassfed farming has the potential to significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions. As cattle and other ruminants graze pasture they stimulate the growth of grass, which absorbs CO2 from the atmosphere through its leaves and stores it in a mass of roots under the ground in a far more stable form of carbon – a process called carbon sequestration. Indeed, scientists now think that grazing cattle on pastures and restoring grasslands could play a vital role in slowing the global warming process. We also know that grassfed meat and dairy products offer real human health benefits in terms of higher levels of omega-3s, CLAs and vitamin E, as well as reducing the risk of E. coli food poisoning and the development of other antibiotic resistant bacterial diseases associated with intensive farming systems.

However, the bad news is that despite the apparent assurances that a grassfed label might offer, some of the so-called grassfed systems out there actually fall well short of our expectations because the requirements for keeping animals on pasture can vary significantly among the different grassfed labels.

When you ask most people to explain what “grassfed farming” means, they will almost always describe a pastoral farming scene with animals grazing outdoors on pasture, rather than in intensive feedlots. The truth is that a number of the grassfed labels which have recently sprung up may actually hide farming systems that still allow farmers to confine cattle in feedlots for at least part of the animals’ lives.

For example, some well-known supermarket retailers have set up their own grass-based beef standards which require participating farmers to ensure their animals spend at least two thirds of their lives on pasture. This sounds great. But when you realize that this could mean that the cattle may actually spend a third of their lives in barren confinement on a feedlot system, the bucolic “grassfed” image of this label starts to fade, and you start to wonder if this beef should really be labeled grassfed at all.

What about the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) definition of grassfed, which was introduced in 2007 to protect consumer and farmer interests? Unfortunately, the USDA’s voluntary grassfed standards only require farmers to ensure their animals have access to the outdoors during the grass growing season. This means that farmers in some states could confine animals for as much as six months of the year in what is essentially a feedlot — yet still label products as grassfed — provided animals are fed trucked-in cut grass or forage.

Even more shocking is that the USDA also allows these grassfed farmers to feed a grain supplement to their cattle. In fact, the USDA sets no limit whatsoever on the amount of grain supplementation that is allowed, as long as the percentage of grain fed is stated somewhere on the grassfed label. Of course, this percentage could appear in much smaller print on the back of the packaging. Some of these grassfed labeling programs also permit highly questionable farming practices such as the routine use of antibiotics and do little to address other problem areas, such as environmental pollution.

So how can you be sure that the grassfed beef you are about to spend your hard-earned cash on really does meet your expectations? When you see the Animal Welfare Approved and the American Grassfed Association logos together on a label, you can be absolutely confident that the animal was raised according to the highest welfare standards, and lived its life on pasture eating a natural diet of 100 percent grass and forage. Animal Welfare Approved certifies truly free-range systems. No feedlot or confinement operation may use the AWA logo to sell its products — and that’s a guarantee.

We published The Grassfed Primer to help people to identify and purchase meat and dairy products from real grassfed farms. We hope that it helps to explain the problems with feedlot farming systems, but also the significant solutions that real grassfed farming can offer, and why it is important to choose a “grassfed” label that really means what it says.

Find out more about real grassfed farming and Animal Welfare Approved: download The Grassfed Primer here.

This is exactly what has happened in a small but very significant planning battle taking place in Great Britain. Midland Pig Producers (MPP) has applied to build a state-of-the-art indoor hog production unit in Derbyshire, which would hold 2,500 sows and produce around 1,000 hogs a week for slaughter – one of the biggest industrial hog farms in the country. But in what might prove to be a fatal blow to MPP’s plans, the Health Protection Agency (HPA) – the U.K. government’s independent advisory body on health – has raised a number of human health concerns about the proposal, including the fact that “recent research has found that those living up to 150m [165 yards] downwind of an intensive swine farming installation could be at risk of adverse human health effects associated with exposure to multi-drug resistant organisms.”

According to the HPA’s statement (1), many scientific studies have demonstrated a causal relationship between ambient emissions and particulates released into the air – such as ammonia and fecal waste dust – and hospital admissions for both respiratory and cardiac diseases and deaths, particularly among older people and, for respiratory illness, children. The HPA also raised concerns about the risks posed by bioaerosols – or airborne particles that contain living organisms, their toxins and waste – which can be inhaled and ingested by humans. The HPA stated that there is significant potential for the generation of bioaerosols at intensive farming installations, with a range of possible health effects – including infectious and antibiotic resistant diseases, acute toxic effects, allergies, cancer, respiratory symptoms and lung function impairment.

Of course, none of this will come as a surprise to anyone in the U.S. who has the misfortune of living near one of thousands of U.S. industrial pig operations across the country. Indeed, U.S. industrial hog operations have been pumping toxic waste into our environment for years – just on a far, far bigger scale.

According to the National Hog Farmer’s latest State of the Industry Report, over 116 million hogs were slaughtered in the U.S. in 2010. Almost 90 percent all pigs slaughtered in the U.S. in 2008 came from hog operations with more than 5,000 pigs, while some of the largest U.S. hog operations can hold over 50,000 head of pigs in confinement. The bottom line is that the majority of pigs slaughtered in the U.S. come from hog operations that are larger than MPP’s proposed unit.

Industrial hog operations like these produce vast quantities of concentrated waste called swine effluent – a toxic concoction of pig feces, heavy metals, bacteria and, of course, residues from the concoction of pharmaceuticals that are given to the pigs to keep them alive in the filthy, confined conditions. Most U.S. factory farms pump this swine effluent in huge nearby open tanks or cesspools. Some of these lagoons are as big as several football fields, each holding hundreds of thousands – if not millions – of gallons of putrefying swine effluent.

Being exposed to the elements, these lagoons emit toxic gases such as ammonia and hydrogen sulfide, as well as methane, a key greenhouse gas. As this swine effluent is expensive to store or treat, most industrial systems periodically pump the waste out of the lagoons and spray it on the surrounding fields. The problem is that it is often sprayed at such high application rates or so often that the soil and plants cannot even begin to absorb it, let alone actually utilize it. This level of over-application frequently leads to highly toxic run-off, where the water-soluble nutrients find their way into our waterways and groundwater systems in vast quantities, polluting our drinking water and rivers, leaving our waterways dead. Accidents and storm floods have also led to massive releases of the toxic waste into waterways. This toxic run off is directly contributing to the 230 recognized oxygen-deprived dead zones along the U.S. coast, such as in the Chesapeake Bay and the Gulf of Mexico. Researchers from Texas A&M University are predicting that the dead zone in the Gulf will exceed 9,400 square miles this year, which would make it one of the largest ever recorded.

A significant body of scientific research already proves that the livestock waste management practices found on most industrial livestock operations in the U.S. are often not fit for the purpose and do not adequately or effectively protect water resources from contamination with excessive nutrients, microbial pathogens and the pharmaceutical residues present in the swine effluent and other industrial farming waste. A 2007 review paper published in Environmental Health Perspectives (2) states, “Impacts on surface water sources and wildlife have been documented in many agricultural areas in the United States. Potential impacts on human and environmental health from long-term inadvertent exposure to water contaminated with pharmaceuticals and other compounds are a growing public concern.”

The storage and frequent spreading of this toxic swine effluent also has a significant impact on the health of communities living nearby. A growing body of research reveals that the toxic emissions which U.S. industrial hog operations release into the atmosphere every day – including gases, particulates and bioaerosols such as hydrogen sulphide, fecal waste dust, and bacteria –are causing serious adverse health effects on U.S. citizens and making their lives a misery. A March 2011 paper published in the journal Epidemiology (3) examined the health of residents in 16 communities in a region of North Carolina that is densely populated with industrial hog operations. The researchers looked at the associations of reported hog odor and of monitored air pollutants with the physical symptoms and lung function of people living within 1.5 miles of hog operations. They found that air pollutants from the hog operations were causing acute physical symptoms, including eye and nasal irritation, respiratory symptoms, difficulty breathing, wheezing, chest tightness, and nausea, among other symptoms. The evidence was so great that the researchers concluded, “Exposure to air pollution from hog operations is an environmental injustice in rural areas hosting facilities that supply pork to populations spared the burdens of its production.”

We already know that industrial farming is a perfect breeding ground for the development of antibiotic resistant bacteria, so the U.K.’s HPA’s concerns that the antibiotic resistant bacteria found on industrial hog operations could pose a real health risk to nearby human populations is clearly justified – and represents a significant public health issue for U.S. citizens. As U.S. hog operations are not subject to the same strict controls on the use of antibiotics as found on European farms, more U.S.-focused research is urgently needed to establish the risks.

In the drive to produce ever-cheaper meat it would appear that the pursuit of profit comes before all other concerns, including our health. Yet as the public finally wakes up to the huge societal costs of industrialized livestock production, including the emergence of antibiotic resistant bacteria, the explosion in diet-related ill health and the impact on rural economies, and as people recognize the unsustainable nature of industrialized livestock production, with its dependence on ever-diminishing supplies of fossil fuels and immense greenhouse gas emissions, the opportunity to radically change the way we farm is becoming more realistic – and more urgent – than ever.

References
1. Derbyshire County Council planning application consultation responses for the erection of a 2,500 breeding sow pig rearing unit near Foston. Available online at:
http://www.derbyshire.gov.uk/applications/ESplanningapps/Planning-Applications/CW9-0311-174/9.1563.5/02-Consultation/RES.pdf

2. Burkholder, J., Libra, B., Weyer. P. et al. (2007). Impacts of waste from concentrated animal feeding operations on water quality. Environmental Health Perspectives. 115:308–312.

3. Schinasi, L., Horton, R.A., Guidry, V.T., Wing, S., Marshall, S.W., Morland, K.B. (2011). Air pollution, lung function, and physical symptoms in communities near concentrated swine feeding operations. Epidemiology. 22:208–215.

So what’s ruffled my feathers? At issue here is a statement released by National Pork Producers Council President Doug Wolf on the new Government Accountability Office report, Antibiotic Resistance: Agencies Have Made Limited Progress Addressing Antibiotic Use in Animals.  Wolf says, “Not only is there no scientific study linking antibiotic use in food animals to antibiotic resistance in humans, as the U.S. pork industry has continually pointed out, but there isn’t even adequate data to conduct a study.” He continues, “The GAO report on antibiotic resistance issued today confirms this.”

Wolf’s comments are hogwash and he knows it. The truth is that the GAO report does nothing of the sort, nor was that ever its intention. Even from the report title it’s already pretty clear what the overall conclusion is: key government agencies – namely the Departments of Health and Human Services (HHS) and Agriculture (USDA) which are primarily responsible for ensuring food safety in the U.S. – are not doing enough to combat the growing threat of antibiotic resistant bacteria to public health. Far from “confirming” Wolf’s position, the GAO report states that, “Antibiotics have saved millions of lives, but antibiotic use in food animals contributes to the emergence of resistant bacteria that may affect humans.”

What’s more, the GAO provided the USDA and HHS with a draft of the report for review and comment and both departments agreed with the GAO’s recommendations for urgent changes to ensure that the correct data is recorded. It’s there in black and white. So I hope you can understand my utter indignation when I read a so-called ‘news’ item about this very same GAO report on the hitherto balanced and respected Meatingplace.com with a headline of “GAO can’t find link between antibiotic use in food animals and human resistance.”  Rather than evaluate the report themselves it would appear that Meatingplace took the spin from the NPPC and ran it as fact.

Of course, this isn’t the first time that the National Pork Producers Council has fed the media with this kind of disinformation. In 2010, the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, National Chicken Council, National Pork Producers Council, American Meat Institute and other industry bodies issued a joint statement which claimed, “there is no conclusive scientific evidence that shows the use of antibiotics on farms contributes significantly to an increase in antibiotic resistance in humans.”

The statement above flies in the face of fact. Only the willfully ignorant could ignore the recent World Health Organization (WHO) report which states that the “effectiveness of critically important antimicrobials for human medicine should not be compromised by inappropriate over-use and/or misuse in the non-human sector.” If we really had nothing to worry about, why did Dr. Margaret Chan, Director-General of the WHO, warn earlier this year that, “In the absence of urgent corrective and protective actions, the world is heading towards a post-antibiotic era in which many common infections will no longer have a cure and, once again, kill unabated”? Why did the WHO dedicate World Health Day 2011 – an annual global PR initiative to highlight a priority area of concern to the WHO – to the very plight of combating the rampant rise of antibiotic-resistant bacteria?

When it comes to protecting your future health, and the health of your family, who would you trust? A motley crew of lobbying organizations whose industry-funded objective is to protect and promote the interests (i.e., profit) of companies that control the industrialized livestock farming industry above all else? Or the World Health Organization (WHO), a world renowned specialized agency of the United Nations that acts as a coordinating authority on international public health?

Scientists have known for years that intensive farming systems provide a perfect breeding ground for antibiotic-resistant disease-causing bacteria. And this isn’t something that’s just happening in other countries: it’s happening in our own backyards. It is also killing Americans every year and unless we do something about it now, it’s going to get a whole lot worse. And while the NPPC is unable to put science ahead of profit, the United States Department of Agriculture has already admitted the link.

Recent cases of antibiotic-resistant E. coli, Salmonella and methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) have all been linked to industrial farming. A recent study by University of Iowa found MRSA in swine and swine workers in the United States. The investigators found a strain of MRSA, known as ST398, in a swine production system in the Midwest. “Because ST398 was found in both animals and humans, it suggests transmission between the two,” said the lead author of the study. “Our findings also suggest that once MRSA is introduced, it may spread broadly among both swine and their caretakers. Agricultural animals could become an important reservoir for this bacterium.” This begs the question, “Who is the NPPC really representing?” By denying the existence of the link between the use of antibiotics and the obvious threat to farmers’ health and livelihood the NPPC demonstrates complete disregard, if not contempt for the farmers it allegedly represents.

NPPC’s position shows a failure of industry to address systemic problems that are threatening public health. A nationwide study published in the Clinical Infectious Diseases journal in April 2011 found “unexpectedly high levels” of antibiotic-resistant Staphylococcus aureus in fresh meat and poultry from grocery stores. Analyzing 136 samples of beef, chicken, pork and turkey from 26 retail grocery stores in five major U.S. cities, researchers found that nearly half of the meat and poultry samples—47 percent—were contaminated with S. aureus, and more than half of those bacteria—52 percent—were resistant to at least three antibiotics. The most recent incident was the outbreak of antibiotic-resistant Salmonella Heidelberg this summer, which was linked to a single Cargill meat processing plant in Arkansas, killing one and sickening more than 80 people. Cargill’s plant reopened over the summer, only to close again just weeks later with a further recall of contaminated meat.

When it comes to matters of global human health, surely honesty and transparency must always prevail? Unfortunately, history tells us otherwise. We know that during the 1970s the tobacco lobby fought blood, tooth and nail to protect its own corporate interests, despite overwhelming evidence that they were killing their customers. In its fight for survival, we can expect the industrial farming lobby to do all it can to protect itself.

In his blog, HSUS president Wayne Pacelle says that the “landmark agreement” will “help millions of hens.” HSUS has been calling for cage-free egg production for years, so an agreement to end all caged egg production would represent an enormous advancement in welfare. Sadly for the hens, that isn’t the basis of this agreement.  In defiance of common sense, and all previously expressed opinion, HSUS has achieved nothing more than an agreement to work with UEP towards new legislation which will move hens out of one type of battery cage into a another slightly larger cage. An historic welfare advancement? I think not.

HSUS claims that this new cage isn’t the same as the standard battery cage; it’s an “enriched” cage. So what exactly is an “enriched” cage and what welfare benefits does it offer the hens? HSUS claims that the “enriched” cages will provide environmental enrichments so birds can engage in important natural behaviors, such as perching, using nest boxes, and having scratching areas. But can a bird that is still behaviorally very much like its ancestor the jungle fowl really express natural behavior in a cage?

The answer is a definitive “no.” The word “enrichment” has positive connotations that quite frankly are not supported by science. In a previous blog, I state that these cages are better described as “furnished” rather than “enriched.” This may seem like wordplay, but the point is that while adding a perch or a nest area to a cage can be factually described as furnishing it, it’s a matter of (scientific) opinion as to whether or not it actually “enriches” the confinement of the bird. Let me explain.

The provision of perches is one of the claimed welfare benefits of furnished cages. Now, you might wonder how it is possible for a bird to get up on a perch in a cage. I suspect that your picture of a bird roosting is probably similar to mine: a bird in a tree or in the rafters of a barn, high up to enable the bird to feel safe from predators and other threats. In a furnished cage the perch is likely to be less than 3 inches off the floor, while the wire top of the cage will be just 15 inches above that. You might argue that as no predators can get into cages the bird must automatically feel safe, but this misses the point. Chickens originate from jungle fowl of southern Asia and, regardless of the cross breeding and hybridization of the species over the years, their natural behavior remains pretty much the same. Scientists have established that in order for chickens to be free from fear and distress they need to be able to get up on a perch where they feel “safe” (Olssen and Keeling 2000; Cooper and Albentosa 2003).

Scientists in Europe have already established that the furnished cage “perch” just isn’t up to the job. In 2012, standard battery cages will be prohibited across the whole of the European Union, following the introduction of legislation in 1999. To assist farmers in the transition, the European Union has funded a huge amount of research into furnished cages and bird welfare. The EU Animal Health and Welfare Panel (AHAW, 2005a) states that “Resting and perching are important aspects of birds’ welfare. Roosting at night on an elevated perch is a behavioral priority.” At just a couple of inches off the floor, scientists have established that hens will regard the “perch” in a furnished cage simply as part of the floor and not as a perch (Tauson, 1984).

Let’s move on to another of the other supposed benefits of a furnished cage: the fact it has a nest area. It is well established that hens place a high value on a secluded nest site. Research has shown that hens will move weighted doors and squeeze through gaps to get to what they consider to be a suitable site. Early work on enriched cages (Guesdon and Faure, 2004) showed that eggs laid in the nest area varied between 43% and 68% in a trial comparing four designs of furnished cages with standard cages. This suggests that the nest areas were not always satisfactory for the hens and reiterates the “furnished versus enriched” argument. The provision of a nest site is not the point: the hens must find it acceptable or they won’t see it as “enrichment.”

The reduced space in cages generally, combined with the small area set aside for nesting in furnished cages, is also a problem. Hens naturally lay at the same time each day – early in the morning – so there could be a line of hens waiting for their turn to get into the nest area. This is not an issue for non-cage systems which provide far more space and more numerous nest boxes.

In some reports on the recent agreement HSUS is quoted as saying that these new cages are better because they are 12 foot by four foot (or 48 square feet). Again, this really is missing the point: the actual size of the cage is nowhere near as relevant as the amount of space each bird gets. A standard broiler house will be around 20,000 square feet, but each of the 20,000 or more birds within the house only gets about 1 foot square as its personal space allowance. Let’s be very clear that whether the cage is 20 inches by 21 inches like a standard battery cage, or 12 foot by four foot, we are still talking about confinement of chickens in cages.

So what exactly is the benefit for the individual bird when moving from a standard to an “enriched” cage? The UEP press release says that as part of its agreement with HSUS the two groups will jointly ask Congress for federal legislation which would require egg producers to increase space per bird in a “tiered phase in,” with the amount of space birds are given increasing, in intervals, over the next 15-18 years. Currently, the majority of birds are each provided 67 square inches of space. The proposed phase-in would culminate with hens eventually being provided with 124-144 square inches of space.

Leaving aside the fact that it sounds like (at least initially) farmers could install enriched cages and still stock them at the same rate as they currently stock their standard battery cages, we need to ask if 144 square inches per bird is sufficient space? On one hand you might say that any increase in space must be positive for the birds; but on the other, if those in the egg industry are going to claim great changes to their systems then they ought to be meaningful. Of course, it’s natural to think that if a hen is moved from 68 square inches to 144 square inches she will feel like she’s gained something. But unfortunately that isn’t how it works: A hen put in a cage that allows her 144 square inches doesn’t know how lucky she is to have more than 68 square inches room. She simply finds that she hasn’t got enough room to move. Her individual welfare is not improved.

Dawkins and Hardie (1989) looked at the average space required by a hen to carry out basic needs and found that a bird requires an average space of 198 square inches to turn; stretching wings requires 138 square inches; and flapping wings 290 square inches. You’ll probably notice that these figures are all far greater than the space provided per bird in a furnished cage. Of course, each cage holds more than one hen and will be greater than 144 square inches in total, so you could argue that within the cage there is 290 square inches for a particular hen to flap her wings at any given time. Of course, she’d have to count on the co-operation of all the other hens to move out of her way and not want to stretch their own wings at the same time as her. And we’re not even considering the need of the bird to run, fly and forage.

Dustbathing is another key natural behavior (Lindberg and Nicol, 1997) that the furnished cage is supposed to facilitate. Dustbathing involves the hen lying down and throwing litter or other loose material over the feathers of their backs and wings; rubbing it in and then shaking it out. When hens do not have a suitable area and litter in which to dustbathe, they still go through the motions of dustbathing. This is known as sham ‘dustbathing’ and research suggests that it does not properly satisfy the motivation of hens to dustbathe. Scientists found that in enriched cages sham dustbathing on the wire cage floor takes place far more frequently than in the littered area (Lindberg and Nicol, 1997), with two thirds of dustbathing taking place outside of the designated area. At first it was thought that the restricted space in cages was contributing to this and that as dustbathing tends to take place at the same time each day (like egg laying) the birds would be motivated to dustbathe at the same time. But further research (Olsson and Keeling, 2002) shows that there was no relation between sham dustbathing and competition for use of the litter area. This suggests that the area, the type of litter provided, and the depth of litter provided in furnished cages just does not meet the hens’ requirement for a dustbathing area. Like the nest box, it’s not just the provision of a designated area that is important; it’s whether the hens see it as acceptable. In non-cage systems where there is litter on the floor and/or access to outdoor areas there is no evidence of sham dustbathing (AHAW, 2005b). Remember, too, that this agreement between UEP and HSUS does absolutely nothing to address other important welfare issues, such as routine removal of part of the birds’ beaks in caged egg production systems to prevent them from pecking each other in the confined conditions.

Of course, this agreement between HSUS and UEP will ultimately mean very little if the proposed legislation is not actually passed or becomes watered-down during its journey through Congress. Call me a cynic but to assume that the poultry lobby won’t attempt to influence the legislative process is somewhat naïve. In light of this newfound concern for animal welfare, I am also intrigued to know what plans UEP now has to amend its own standards. Or maybe UEP is just happy to wait for the legislation – if and when it comes…

But perhaps the most perplexing aspect of this recent agreement is that just over a year ago HSUS carried out a review of the welfare problems associated with enriched cages, which concluded that enriched cages provided “an unacceptably limited amount of space per bird.” Having reviewed the science myself I am at a complete loss as to what changes have occurred in the last year to make these previously unacceptable enriched cages suddenly so acceptable to HSUS. And while we can debate whether there is any welfare benefit to the agreement reached between UEP and HSUS, it is frankly unacceptable for Wayne Pacelle and HSUS to now present enriched caged systems as “humane.” The fact is that this new agreement between HSUS and UEP appears to offer little in terms of animal welfare, yet much in terms of positive PR. In light of these concerns, perhaps the two parties involved would agree to publicize the full terms of the agreement to allow an open, honest and democratic debate. Until that point I have to assume there are other forces at play, because I fail to see how this private backroom agreement that effectively leaves billions of hens in cages achieves much at all.

References:

AHAW (2005a) Opinion of the Scientific Panel on Animal Health and Welfare on a request from the Commission related to welfare aspects of various systems of keeping laying hens (Question EFSA-Q-2003-092), adopted by the AHAW Panel on 10th and 11th November 2004. The EFSA Journal, 197: 1-23.

AHAW (2005b) Report of the Scientific Panel on Animal Health and Welfare on a request from the Commission related to welfare aspects of various systems of keeping laying hens (Question EFSA-Q-2003-092), accepted by the AHAW Panel on 14th and 15th September 2004. Annex to The EFSA Journal, 197: 1-23.

Cooper, J. J. and Albentosa, M. J. (2003) Behavioural priorities of laying hens. Avian and Poultry Biology Reviews, 14: 127-149.

Dawkins, M. S. and Hardie, S. (1989) Space needs of laying hens. British Poultry Science, 30: 413-416.

Guedson, V. and Faure, J. M. (2004) Laying performance and egg quality in hens kept in standard or furnished cages. Animal Research, 53: 45-57.

Lindberg, A. C. and Nicol, C. J. (1997) Dust-bathing in modified battery cages: Is sham dust-bathing an adequate substitute? Applied Animal Behaviour Science, 55: 113-128.

Olsson, I. A. S. and Keeling, L. J. (2000) Night-time roosting in laying hens and the effect of thwarting access to perches. Applied Animal Behaviour Science, 68: 243-256.

Olsson, I. A. S. and Keeling, L. J. (2002) No effect of social competition on sham dustbathing in furnished cages for laying hens. Acta Agriculturae Scandinavica, Section A, Animal Science, 52: 253-256.

Tauson, R. (1984) Effect of a perch in conventional cages for laying hens. Acta Agriculturae Scandinavica, 74: 193-209.

Now, in a report that anyone with even a simple understanding of biology will react to by saying “…and it took you how long?” the FDA has admitted that arsenic does indeed remain in the body of birds fed this dangerous element. This discovery that arsenic persists in the livers of meat chickens has caused Alpharma, a subsidiary of Pfizer Inc., to voluntarily remove its arsenic containing feed additive Roxarsone from the market. As any high school student knows, the liver of birds and animals is effectively a filter working to remove unwanted contaminants from the body. And like all filters, the liver can become saturated or indeed fail completely if it is overwhelmed by toxins. So the discovery of arsenic in the liver of broiler chickens fed a diet containing this element is of no great surprise.

You might ask why arsenic is in poultry feed at all. When you look up one of the many drugs containing arsenic licensed by the FDA, the indications for use are “for the prevention of coccidiosis, for increased rate of weight gain and improved feed efficiency.”  Coccidiosis is a parasite caused by overstocking and intensive facility use. As it is so often with Big Ag, rather than fixing the system, it tries to mitigate it with drugs and poisons–the unintended consequences of Big Ag’s failure to look further than the bottom line when designing food animal systems. Most of the rest of the world recognizes that adding a known poison to something you are going to eat is not a great idea. For example arsenic is prohibited from being added to any animal feed in the Europe. This is not just because of the human health risks but also because of the known pollution problems. Think back to the FDA statement that arsenic will be excreted by the birds and animals it is fed to – where do you think that excreted arsenic ends up? Arsenic is a chemical element in its own right. It doesn’t break down or degrade – once it’s out there in the environment, it’s out there, destroying ecosystems and polluting watercourses.

This is another breathtaking example of the arrogance of the U.S.’s food animal production industry. For this industry, profit comes before everything. Once again we see misrepresentation and rhetoric exposing U.S. consumers to potentially life threatening food products. You want past examples? How about the fact that despite the rest of the world understanding the connection between shoveling antibiotics into animal feed and the same antibiotics becoming resistant to bacteria (and therefore worthless for human treatment) Big Ag stoically questions the science.   This proves again that Big Ag in the U.S. is unwilling to let facts get in the way of profit.

Despite stating that the use of arsenic in chicken feed had previously stopped, major chicken producer Perdue resisted a proposed bill to ban the additive in Maryland last year. Tyson Foods has made similar statements about the use of arsenic but it is estimated that around 2.2 million pounds of arsenical feed additives are used in poultry food each year. Exactly where has this vast mountain of arsenic been going I find myself asking? The FDA study was first available in February. It is interesting that it only seems to have seen the light of day now. Perhaps it was suppressed while waiting for Big Ag to work out a position to police itself.

For those of us with a healthy distrust of the power of Big Ag we are left relying on a voluntary withdrawal of one of the several available arsenic containing products rather than a complete and enforceable ban on all arsenic in feed. With the weight of growing evidence, a complete ban would hardly be groundbreaking – and in fact would just bring the U.S. in line with the rest of the modern world.  But, for now I suppose we’ll settle for the voluntary withdrawal.  I know my family and I will continue eating pastured poultry from Animal Welfare Approved farms.

At the time of writing the exact source of this E. coli outbreak is still not known, although almost all cases have occurred in Germany or were directly linked to travel there. But while the primary focus remains identifying the source of the outbreak and treating those affected, scientists have already expressed alarm at the fact that this particular strain of E. coli – E. coli O104:H4 – is resistant to several classes of important antibiotics. And the consensus is that one of the most likely reasons for the development of this multiple-resistant strain is the misuse of antibiotics in intensive livestock farming systems.

As if this devastating E. coli outbreak isn’t already damning enough, last week a paper from Cambridge University scientists in the Lancet Infectious Diseases journal confirmed the emergence of a new strain of MRSA with multiple resistance to key antibiotics in British dairy cows, which can cause life-threatening illness in humans. Again, the scientific consensus is that the cause is the routine use of antibiotics in dairy farming, which are used to treat the cattle health problems associated with very high levels of milk production per cow.

So how did we get to this point – and what can we do about it now?

Whether it is dairy, beef, pig or poultry, almost all intensive farming systems rely on the routine use of low-dose antibiotics to maximize productivity at the lowest possible cost. These low doses of antibiotics are not given to animals because they are actually sick, but because they are managed in a way that encourages diseases to thrive. If you keep beef cattle in crowded feedlots and give them high levels of grain in their diets they are very likely to get stressed, reducing their natural immunity to diseases, and increasing the risk of liver abscesses, bloat and acidosis. This might not be enough to kill them, but it certainly doesn’t make them feel great. As a result, their growth rate will drop – meaning less profit for the intensive farm. Giving a daily dose of antibiotics in the feed or water counters the unhealthy effects of the farming system and keeps the animals alive and growing. And this is happening on a vast scale: During 2009 alone, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) revealed that 80% of all antibiotics produced in the U.S. were used for animals – that’s an incredible 28,820,000 pounds out of the 36,080,000 pounds produced.

The problem is that this regular administration of antibiotics can lead to a situation where the level of antibiotic is not high enough to kill all the bacteria and instead a small number survive with resistance to the drug. These antibiotic resistant strains can then pass on this resistance to other bacteria, which spread to other animals – and ultimately to humans. The first we may know about it is if we get sick and the doctors find that the treatments they once used no longer have any effect. Some estimates put the number of Americans suffering from MRSA infections at 90,000 per year – leading to nearly 20,000 deaths.

I have written many times about the misuse of antibiotics in intensive farming and the threat of antibiotic resistant bacteria (see The Defense of the Indefensible, Responsible Use of Antibiotics in Agriculture, or Antibiotics in Farming: Has Tyson Foods Shot Itself in the Foot?). Scientists and others have been warning the intensive farming industry and politicians alike of these very dangers for far too long. If this E. coli outbreak and the news of a new strain of MRSA fail to serve as a wake-up call to end the non-therapeutic use of antibiotics in U.S. farming, then we only have ourselves to blame.

The rise of antibiotic resistance has already led to a ban in the use of non-therapeutic antibiotics in a number of developed countries. The U.S. farming industry is already four years behind the European Union, 14 years behind Denmark and 24 years behind Sweden in banning the non-therapeutic use of medically important antibiotics in farm animal production. Those using and promoting intensive farming systems in the U.S. have not banned non-therapeutic use of antibiotics because such a ban would affect the way they have to farm. But isn’t preserving the usefulness of medicines we depend upon more important than cheap protein?

Danish and Dutch research has shown that over time, stopping agriculture from routinely using antibiotics that are important to human health reduces the levels of resistance. All of the countries mentioned previously have taken positive action to protect the long-term effectiveness of the antibiotics their citizens need in case of bacterial illness. And contrary to what industrial agriculturalists might want you to think, the ban on non-therapeutic antibiotics has not reduced efficiency of meat production or directly increased the cost of food. In fact, one study in Denmark showed that the ban led to lower mortality and higher growth rates in pig farming.

If there can be one positive outcome of this devastating E. coli outbreak it must be to raise public awareness of the misuse of antibiotics in intensive farming systems. On March 9, Congresswoman Louise Slaughter reintroduced The Preservation of Antibiotics for Medical Treatment Act (PAMTA), which seeks to limit the overuse of antibiotics in livestock farming so these lifesaving drugs will remain effective in the treatment of human illnesses. Congresswoman Slaughter first introduced this important bill in 2009, but the issues were publicly dismissed by the intensive farming lobby and its paid-off politicians. In light of these new developments, they will find it difficult to undermine this urgent effort to introduce essential controls on these harmful activities.

Use the following link to contact your representative now and demand that they support PAMTA.

The Soil Association published this news report today calling for the end of routine use of antibiotics in dairy farming.

Following a study published today on the discovery of MRSA in British milk, the Soil Association is calling for the end of routine antibiotic use in dairy farming.

A new type of MRSA bacteria was discovered by scientists from Cambridge University in samples of milk taken from cows with mastitis [1]. This is the first time that MRSA has been found in farm animals in the UK.

Collaborating scientists from the Health Protection Agency and the Scottish MRSA Reference Laboratory, who have published their findings in the same paper, subsequently found that the same type of MRSA had already been the source of infection in a number of people in England and Scotland [2]. Evidence available so far suggests that the new MRSA is most likely being transmitted from cattle to people [3]. The scientists have called their discovery ‘potentially of public health importance’.

MRSA has emerged on dairy farms because of the routine use of antibiotics to deal with the health problems associated with the extremely high levels of milk being produced per cow.

Of particular concern is the use of antibiotics known as modern cephalosporins. These drugs are widely used on farms and are most strongly suspected of promoting MRSA in both humans and farm animals [4]. Scientists from Liverpool University have called for a ban on their use in dairy farming, saying there is ‘no welfare case’ for their use since they simply act as a ‘prop for sub-optimal management and welfare’ [5].

A Freedom of Information request submitted by the Soil Association to the Veterinary Medicines Directorate has revealed that the veterinary use of modern cephalosporins has more than quadrupled over the past decade, despite calls from the World Health Organisation, the European Medicines Agency and the former Chief Medical Officer, Sir Liam Donaldson, to restrict, or even ban their use on farms [4].

The principal reasons for the increase in use are that they have been widely advertised in the farming press (something not permitted in any other EU country), and dairy farmers have been under considerable financial pressure because supermarkets have driven down the farmgate price of milk to below the cost of production

The Soil Association has already severely restricted the use of modern cephalosporins and banned the routine use of all antibiotics on organic farms it certifies. It is calling for similar restrictions to apply on all dairy farms [6].

In several other European countries, new strains of MRSA have been found in pigs and poultry as well as cattle. Many humans have been infected by these new farm-animal strains, and there have even been some deaths [7]. British pigs appear so far to be free of MRSA, but no testing has been carried out on poultry despite the fact that the UK imports live poultry from countries known to have MRSA in their flocks.

The Soil Association is also calling for:

• The urgent introduction of a comprehensive programme to test farm animals, farm workers, veterinary surgeons, milk, meat and farm waste for MRSA [8]. This would bring the UK into line with several of our EU partners.
• The Government to review its decision to continue to allow advertising of antibiotics to farmers. The veterinary profession backed this view in a recent consultation – vets are in the best position to prescribe and should not be influenced by farmers or drug companies when it comes to safeguarding human health. [9]

Commenting on the research, Helen Browning OBE, Director of the Soil Association said:

“This new evidence confirms our long-held view of the importance of absolutely minimising the use of antibiotics especially those closely related to antibiotics used by people. This requires excellent husbandry, and much reduced stress on our animals.

“In the relentless drive for increased per animal productivity, and under acute price pressure, dairy systems are becoming ever more antibiotic dependent. We need to get farmers off this treadmill, even if that means that milk has to cost a few pennies more. That would be a very small price to pay for maintaining the efficacy of these life-saving drugs.”

For more detail read the Soil Association briefing sheet: ‘MRSA in British cattle. A new farm superbug spreading to humans?’

Notes:

[1] Garcia-Alvarez L. et al., 2011. Meticillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus with a novel mecA homologue emerging in human and bovine populations in the UK and Denmark: a descriptive study, Lancet Infectious Diseases

For further information on the findings, see sections 1 to 5 of accompanying Soil Association briefing sheet ‘MRSA in British cattle. A new farm superbug spreading to humans?’

[2] The new type of MRSA found in cows cannot be confirmed as being MRSA with existing laboratory tests. Consequently, the scientists had to develop a new test which proved that the bacteria were MRSA. The new test was then applied to bacteria previously collected from human patients and held in the HPA and the Scottish MRSA reference laboratory databases. The fact that the new type of MRSA can only be confirmed as MRSA with this new test means that is has probably been around for some time already without being detected.

See sections 2, 3 and 4 of accompanying Soil Association briefing sheet.

[3] Transmission is most likely occurring through direct contact with farm animals, putting farm workers, vets and their families at risk, or through the environment (when manure is spread on the land, for example). Consuming pasteurised milk is unlikely to be a risk factor because pasteurisation will kill the MRSA.

See section 5 of accompanying Soil Association briefing sheet for evidence that transmission is occurring from cattle to people.

[4] The modern cephalosporins are classified by the World Health Organisation as ‘critically important in human medicine’ because they are frontline drugs in hospitals and there is evidence that some of the resistance to them is being transmitted from farm animals to humans.

For further information, see section 6 of accompanying Soil Association briefing sheet.

[5] Grove-White  D. and Murray R., 2009. Use of antimicrobials, Veterinary Record, 164: 727

See also section 7 of accompanying Soil Association briefing sheet.

[6] The Soil Association is not calling for a total ban on the veterinary use of modern cephalosporins. It believes that vets and farmers should be legally required to reserve them for life-threatening situations in individual large animals where the use of other treatments are unlikely to work, as is already the case for Soil Association-certified farmers. Such rules would probably have prevented the emergence of MRSA on dairy farms.

For further information, see section 7 of accompanying Soil Association briefing sheet.

[7] See section 8 of accompanying Soil Association briefing sheet.

[8] Since 2007, the Soil Association has repeatedly called for British farm animals to be tested for MRSA. Despite extensive surveillance in many other European countries, to date, the only tests that have been undertaken in the UK by government scientists have been on milk samples that we now know were incorrectly declared free of MRSA, and on dust samples from a number of buildings housing sows on pig farms, all of which were also declared negative.

[9] The Soil Association, and other NGOs like Compassion in World Farming, the Food Ethics Council and Sustain, have consistently campaigned for a ban on the advertising of antibiotics directly to farmers. During a consultation last year, the British Veterinary Association joined the calls for a ban. After the consultation, the Veterinary Medicines Directorate recommended to the Government that a ban should be implemented, but the advice was rejected after lobbying against the ban by the pharmaceutical industry and the farming press.

For further information on advertising, see section 6 of accompanying Soil Association briefing sheet.

The “Ag Gag” bill, which was openly backed by the industrial farming lobby, was promoted on the basis that it would help to improve animal welfare or protect family farms. But the stark reality is that this proposed law has absolutely nothing to do with animal welfare and was nothing more than Big Ag protecting its interests again, stealthily promoting legislation that would effectively make it a felony to attempt to expose the horrific practices that are going on behind the doors of industrial farms.

What is going on at these farms that is so appalling that Big Ag is willing to use the power of the law to prevent people from seeing it? Well, the recent undercover video taken at the E6 Cattle Company is just the latest in a long line of horrific videos and photographs that expose the systemic welfare abuses that go right to the very heart of the industrial livestock farming system.
E6 Cattle Company raises tens of thousands of calves each year for use on dairy farms. In this latest video, E6 Cattle Co. workers are shown bludgeoning calves with pickaxes and hammers numerous times before the animals are rendered unconscious, as well as kicking downer calves in the head and standing on their necks and ribs. The abuse at E6 Cattle Co. is without a doubt some of the worst that I have seen. Yet if the proposed Ag Gag legislation ever became law then none of us would have been informed of this atrocity.

And that’s just the way that the billion dollar industrial farming industry wants to keep it. The only farming images that they want you to associate their shadowy businesses with are the bucolic picket-fenced scenes you’ll find on their food packaging and in their advertising promotions.

At a time when more people are becoming aware of the devastating impact that industrialized farming is having on our health, the health of animals, and the health of our planet, it’s no coincidence that Big Ag and its political friends are campaigning for secrecy legislation to prevent people from seeing what goes on at industrial farms. You don’t have to be a conspiracy theorist to recognize the real purpose of this Ag Gag legislation. It’s a shocking abuse of power and the politicians involved should be utterly ashamed of themselves.

In the land of the free, we have the right to know how our food is produced and what we are feeding our families. Yet the truth is that our food industry is now controlled by a handful of immensely powerful and secretive corporations that are only too willing to put shareholder profits ahead of our health, the livelihood of American farmers and workers, and our environment. They don’t want you to know what goes on behind their locked gates and barbed wire fences because the chances are that if you knew, you wouldn’t want to touch your food – let alone eat it.

Let me make one thing clear: At Animal Welfare Approved, we don’t have a vegetarian or vegan agenda. Our sole purpose is to promote high-welfare farming and we believe that farmed animals have a vital role to play in sustainable farming systems. Our standards have been rated “most stringent” by the World Society for the Protection of Animals and our independent on-farm auditing system ensures that our farmers follow the standards to the letter. When you see the Animal Welfare Approved logo, you can be confident that the food really was produced to the highest welfare standards possible. Our farmers have nothing to hide: They are proud of their farms and of what they do, and many welcome visitors on a regular basis.

Proposals to introduce Ag Gag legislation are still underway in Iowa and Minnesota. Let’s hope that the lawmakers there also see sense and throw out this shameful abuse of the U.S. legal system.

Published in the latest Environmental Health Perspectives journal, the results suggest that prenatal exposure to OPs can have a lasting and damaging effect on our children. Researchers from the University of California, Columbia University, and Mount Sinai School of Medicine all found that children exposed to higher levels of OP while in the womb were likely to have significantly lower intelligence scores by age seven than children who were not exposed.

The studies began more than ten years ago. Researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, for example, followed 329 children from before birth, testing urine samples of their mothers for OP residues twice during pregnancy and then after birth from the children at regular intervals between ages six months and five years, before testing the cognitive abilities of the 329 children at age seven. All three studies found evidence linking prenatal OP pesticide exposures with adverse effects on cognitive function that continued into early childhood. According to Brenda Eskenazi, who led the U.C. Berkeley team, the impact on intelligence levels found “could mean, on average, more kids being shifted into the lower end of the spectrum of learning, and more kids needing special services in school.” Stark findings indeed.

OPs are still one of the most widely used pesticides across the world. They are commonly used as insecticides on grains, fruit and vegetables, as well as to control parasites on farm livestock and pets, and for fly control in industrial and commercial premises. I’m sure the danger that OPs present will come as no surprise to some of you.  After all, they were originally developed during World War II for chemical warfare as nerve gases.

But the fact that all three studies noted in the Environmental Health Perspectives reached this conclusion independently is highly significant – and will make the evidence even harder for Big Ag to ignore or dismiss: “As a group, these papers add substantial weight to the evidence linking OP pesticides with adverse effects on cognitive development by simultaneously reporting consistent findings for three different groups of children,” comments Hugh A. Tilson, editor-in-chief of Environmental Health Perspectives.

These disturbing results come hot on the heels of research published in the Official Journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics last year, which revealed that exposure to OPs could result in a higher risk of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) among children, covered in an AWA blog.

As with the three studies noted in the Environmental Health Perspectives, the children involved in the Pediatrics research were not from rural areas or farming families (who might come into direct contact with excessive amounts of OP on farms). Once again, the science clearly shows that that exposure to OP is potentially harmful to our children in all walks of life. It’s worth noting that there is also a known link between OP toxicity and depression and suicide.

Remember that this research is looking at the impact of a single family of pesticides on our health. Yet there is mounting concern about the so-called cocktail effect of multiple pesticides on our health – and particularly the health of our children. Dr. Vyvyan Howard, a pathologist at the University of Ulster, Ireland, specializes in toxicology and the cocktail effect of pesticides and food additives on the human body. He is extremely concerned about the combined health effects of modern chemicals, such as pesticides, many of which have only been around for the last 50-60 years. He warns that official safety limits are only based on the potential impacts of single pesticides. “There are no toxicological tests of chemical combinations, despite the fact that studies have suggested that their combined impact, or cocktail effect, can make their impact much more powerful,” he explains. As a result of his studies, Howard is a strong supporter of organic food.

So what is the answer? Well, the most important thing is that we all continue to eat a balanced diet – and that includes fresh fruit and vegetables. Giving up all fresh fruit and vegetables will do us – and our children – far more short-term harm than good, that’s for sure! But this research is further evidence that we all really do need to think about where our food comes from and, above all, how it is produced. It’s no longer safe to just sit back and eat.

We all have the ability to educate ourselves to ensure that we can make the right choices when it comes to feeding our families. And we can all vote with our wallets and force Big Ag to change its farming practices by choosing safe, nutritious, wholesome foods.  If we all start doing it, they’ll soon listen.

At Animal Welfare Approved, we already prohibit the use of OPs on our farms for just these reasons. We are concerned about public health, but we are also concerned about the health of our farmers and their families, as well as farm animals. If you are unsure about whether or not your fruit and vegetables have been sprayed with OP insecticide, you should wash them thoroughly before eating them – using a soft brush, if possible. And if you can, always try to seek out meat, dairy and other products from programs like Animal Welfare Approved that prohibit the use of harmful OPs in farming. Together we can change agriculture for the better.