Question about bird flu.

[livinginphotographs]

I haven't researched this extensively, but it seems to me that this epidemic is only exacerbated by the shitty conditions of chickens and other poultry in factory farms (which I'm sure we're all aware of).

I'm not trying to do an "I told you so" dance, but I can't help but feel a bit pissed off that meat-eaters and their complete lack of foresight by supporting what is essentially an unregulated and unethical industry has led to what may end up to be a global catastrophe a la the 1917-18 worldwide flu epidemic.

This definitely seems like a good time to point out why factory farms not only harm animals, but humans as well.

[livinginphotographs]

1. Kick....

Don't make me post this in GD, people.... :evilgrin:

[Warpy]

2. Overcrowding is why poultry has to be fed antibiotics

since a lot of bacterial infections spread like wildfire in factory farming conditions.

You're right, factory farming is cruel and shortsighted and produces an inferior foodstuff laced with hormones and antibiotics that human beings were never meant to get in their diet. If you must eat meat once in a while, eat organically raised meat.

However, most of the serious avian flu we're seeing in the far east is in poultry that is free range. The reservoir for this illness is also turning out to be wild fowl, which is why containing it will simply not be possible.

All flu is essentially avian flu, which is why we grow virus for the yearly vaccines in eggs. This one is different, however, a much more serious strain, and virologists have dubbed it "Chicken Ebola."

Avoiding poultry and eggs won't do much good if it breaks out into the human population. The reason to avoid factory farmed animal products isn't disease, it's adulteration with hormones and antibiotics that overcrowding forces.

[iamjoy]

3. Say Mad Cow, I'm With You

From what I understand, Mad Cow Disease stems from feeding cows, feed contaminated with, er, other cows.

In the old days, man had farm. Man kept cow. Cow ate grass and hay. When man needed meat, man killed cow. It kind of made sense really, man was just part of the food chain, near the top for the most part, but eating meat involved a degree of personal sacrifice.

Ranchers and small family farms raised cows for consumption in nearby cities. Large pieces of animal carcass went to butchers. Butcher cut meat. Even if the connection to the animal we were eating wasn't direct, there was still something natural about the whole process, after all, as we urbanized not everybody could keep their own livestock.

Now, we have large factory farms where cows do not roam a range, but are kept in small boxes. They are fed grain and anything but grass because it suits consumer demand for meat. Large factory style slaughter houses send the meat to the store cut mostly ready to sell. The fact that the meat is prepared on an "assembly line" not only ruduces the need for skilled professions (buthers) by replacing them with cheaply paid manual labor, but increases the opportunity for contamination.

[Warpy]

4. Acutally, cows fare relatively well

and most are range fed on public land for a fee until a few weeks before slaughter. That's when they're transferred to feed lots, which are pens crowded with cattle and surrounded by bins of corn and other high fat foodstuffs that will make the cattle unhealthily fat but their meat tender enough to eat as a quckly seared and nearly raw in the middle steak.

Anybody who's ever driven by a feed lot in August will never forget the experience.

Chickens and pigs fare the worst from factory farming.

(contaminated feed fed to cows generally came from slaughtered downer sheep who had been suffering from an equivalent disease in sheep called scrapie)