U.S.%20Meat%20Production:%20Protect%20Your%20Health%20and%20the%20Environment

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U.S. Meat Production Protect Your Health and the
Environment

• Gretchen Miller, Project Coordinator
• Campaign for Safe Food
• Oregon Physicians for Social Responsibility

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Oregon Physicians for Social Responsibility

• National org. started in 1961by a group of
  physicians looking at the health effects of
  nuclear weapons.
• Oregon chapter started in 1980
• Expands beyond nuclear bombs/war global
  warming, environmental health, Campaign for Safe
  Food

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Campaign for Safe Food

• Established in 2003 to advance a sustainable
  food system that does not use genetic
  engineering.
• rBGH
• Biopharmaceuticals
• Sustainable Meat Production

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Goals

• ? awareness of problems associated with the U.S.
  meat system
• ? negative health, environmental, and animal
  welfare impacts associated with meat production
• ? support for sustainable meat purchasing

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Industrial Meat System
VS.
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Industrial Meat System
VS.

• Large CAFOs make up only 5 of livestock
  operations but produce more than 50 of our food
  animals.
• A large CAFO operation contains more than 1,000
  beef cattle, 2,500 hogs or 100,000 broiler hens.

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Industrial Meat Production

• CAFOs/factory farms are where the majority of
  meat comes from 67 poultry and 42 pork
• Done to produce the highest output at the lowest
  cost
• Requires many inputs for economic viability
  (pesticides, antibiotics, feed, etc.)

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Impacts

• Health
• Environment
• Animal Welfare

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Health

• Antibiotic Resistance
• Diet Related Disease
• Additional Concerns

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Health - Antibiotic Resistance

• What is it?
• Bacteria develop ability to withstand the effects
  of certain antibiotics, making treatment
  difficult

Slide adapted from Keep Antibiotics Working.
Antibiotic Resistance An Emerging Public Health
Crisis
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Health Antibiotic Resistance

• How does antibiotic resistance affect us?
• Monetarily Estimated that resistant infections
  cost 30 billion annually
• Health Resistant infections and illnesses
  afflict millions each year
• Campylobacter, Salmonella, MRSA

Slide adapted from Keep Antibiotics Working.
Antibiotic Resistance An Emerging Public Health
Crisis
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Health - Antibiotic Resistance

• Non-therapeutic antibiotics
• Administered in animal feed and water to
  compensate for poor living conditions and promote
  growth
• Antibiotics also enter feed through crops grown
  on soil fertilized with manure (human food
  exposure as well)
• Many of these drugs are the same or similar to
  what is used in human medicine

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Health - Antibiotic Resistance
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Health - Diet Related Disease

• Diets high in red and processed meat are
  associated with greater incidence of Type 2
  diabetes and mortality from cancer and
  cardiovascular disease
• Saturated fats ? cholesterol levels which ? risk
  of heart disease and stroke
• Animals raised on grain fed diets may have more
  total fat, saturated fat, cholesterol, and
  calories and less Vitamin E, beta carotene,
  Vitamin C, and omega-3 fatty acids

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Health Additional Concerns

• Cloned Animals
• ? antibiotics and hormones
• Few studies have looked directly at food safety
• No long-term studies have looked at food safety
• Genetically Engineered Animals
• Allergenicity
• Bioactive proteins/peptides
• Toxicity from novel protein expression

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Health Additional Concerns

• Growth Hormones
• rBGH - ? antibiotic resistance, possible increase
  in cancers
• 6 other FDA approved steroid growth hormones
  widely used in meat production that may interfere
  with human hormones such as estrogen and
  progesterone increase cancer?
• Endocrine disruptors

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Environment

• Global Warming
• Water
• Land Degradation
• Genetic Engineering

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Environment Global Warming

• Livestock contribution
• Worldwide 18 - more than all transportation
• U.S. 3-5 on farm
• U.S. emissions come from enteric fermentation,
  manure management, and soil management

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Environment Global Warming

• Effects of global warming
• Drought
• Difficulties with accessing potable water
• Loss of agricultural crops - ? food prices
• Devastation to forests - ? wildfires
• Rising Temps
• Heat related illness
• Endangered species
• Flood
• Displacement
• Death

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Environment - Water

• Contamination
• Nitrates and other nutrients, heavy metals, and
  antibiotics found in manure leak from lagoons,
  runoff from fields and contaminate water
• Blue Baby Syndrome, spontaneous abortion,
  gastrointestinal problems
• Dead zones (Gulf of Mexico 5-8k miles2 )
• Fish kills
• In just 22 states, 35,000 river miles polluted
  with animal waste

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Environment - Water

• Overuse
• Estimated that it takes 2,500 gallons of water to
  produce 1lb. of meat
• It take only 25 gallons to produce 1lb. of wheat
• Irrigation for feed crops accounts for much of
  water use
• It takes 10 lbs. of grain to produce one lb. of
  meat
• 80 of grain (corn and soy) in U.S. goes to
  livestock production

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Environment Land Degradation

• Forests and native habitats are converted to crop
  and grazing land for animal feed
• Unsustainable grazing practices lead to erosion

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Environment Genetic Engineering

• Genetically Engineered Animals
• ? in biodiversity from reproduction with non-GE
  species (e.g., fish, insects, mice, etc.)
• Genetically Engineered Crops for Feed
• Contamination, super weeds, harmful to
  beneficial insects, increased pesticide use
• 80 of corn and 92 soybeans planted in the U.S.
  are genetically engineered
• 80 of corn and at least 50 of soybeans go to
  livestock feed

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Animal Welfare

• Confinement/Concentration
• GE Cloned Animals

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Animal Welfare - CAFOs

• Confinement Cannot act out innate behaviors,
  unable to naturally mate, aggressive behaviors
• Sanitation Increase in disease (directly
  related to antibiotic resistance)

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Animal Welfare Cloned Animals

• Cloned Animals
• 90 prenatal failure
• 50 Large Offspring Syndrome (LOS)
• ? rates of diabetes and heart damage

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Animal Welfare Genetically Engineered Animals

• Genetically Engineered Animals
• Variable/uncontrolled gene expression - illness
  and death
• ? in utero death, infertility, developmental
  defects
• ? diabetes and parasites

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What Can You Do?

• Reduce your meat consumption
• Meatless Monday
• Abstaining from red meat one day a week could
  result in a 4-5 decrease in GHG emissions
  related to food intake in avg. household.

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What Can You Do?

• Move meat off the center of your plate/? portion
  sizes USDA nutritional guidelines
• saved can be used for increased fruit and
  vegetable consumption or purchasing sustainably
  raised meat.

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What Can You Do?

• Vote with your dollars
• Purchase sustainably produced meat
  environmentally responsible, without antibiotics,
  humanely raised
• Avoid products that are known to be GE or cloned

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Sustainable Options

• Third Party Certified Labels
• Organic, Food Alliance, Humanely Raised
• USDA Approved Label Claims
• No hormones added, raised without antibiotics,
  grass-fed
• Local
• Farmers markets, CSAs, U-Pick, etc.
• Make sure choices are sustainable

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What Can You Do?

• Educate others
• Friends, colleagues, students
• Encourage change
• Hospitals
• School Cafeterias
• Senior Centers
• Catered Events

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What Can You Do?

• Weigh in on the issues
• Submit comments on proposed rules
• Write to your congress person regarding
  introducing or supporting legislation
• Sen. Ron Wyden
• Sen. Jeff Merkely
• Rep. David Wu
• Rep. Greg Walden
• Rep. Earl Blumenauer
• Rep. Pete DeFazio
• Rep. Kurt Schrader

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• Thank You!
• Gretchen Miller, Project Coordinator
• Campaign for Safe Food
• Oregon Physicians for Social Responsibility
• gretchen_at_oregonpsr.org
• Office [phone]
• Cell [phone]