I believe that pork should be labelled with the production method. As eggs must be labelled if they are from caged hens, why does the same rule not apply to pigs which are raised in concentrated pens? Consumers who have watched Pig Business say they will never buy factory pork again.
Not least due to the threat to human health as Coilin Nunan, advisor to the UK Soil Association, warned at the parliament event
“Human health is at risk because the routine
preventative use of antibiotics in factory farms is causing an increasing number of diseases such as campylobacter and salmonella to become resistant to antibiotics.”
A month later a screening and panel discussion on Capitol Hill, Washington, sponsored by Congressman Dennis Kucinich and attended by two further Members of Congress, was packed with congressional staffers, NGO leaders and journalists.
Tracy Worcester at the Pig Business screening on Capitol Hill, Washington DC
On the same day as the screening, Congresswoman Louise Slaughter announced the re-introduction of her bill to limit the use of antibiotics to when pigs are actually ill rather than as a growth promoter or preventative medication. Although adding antibiotics to pig feed to promote growth has been banned in the EU since 2003, it is still allowed in the US where 80% of all antibiotics are given to mostly healthy, factory farmed animals. Doctors and scientists are concerned that this practice is leading to new antibiotic resistant diseases which, like MRSA ST398, passes from pigs to humans and which a pilot study in Iowa has found in 45% of the workers and 49% of the pigs.
Co-hosted by Bobby Kennedy Jr, nephew of John Kennedy the late President, the Capitol Hill screening came at a time when the Environmental Protection Agency is under attack from a pro-corporate Republican- controlled House of Representatives and threatened with drastic funding cuts and reduction of its ability to regulate polluting industries.
Congressman Dennis Kucinich, sponsor and speaker at US screening on Capitol Hill, Washington
In his introduction Dennis Kucinich said, “We are here because of our awareness of the damage to our planet done by the uncaring interests who come together to produce these CAFOs. This film by Tracy Worcester and the participation of Robert Kennedy, Water keepers and all the environmental and farm activists here tonight, is going to help to create a broader environmental consciousness in this country which will produce the kind of action necessary to bring about the reforms that are critically needed to repair our relationship with nature, animals and the planet itself.”
Bobby Kennedy, Jr, speaker at Capitol Hill event, founder of Water keepers Alliance, and environmental lawyer
Robert Kennedy Jr an environmental lawyer and founder of Water keeper Alliance which monitors pollution from factory farms across the US and Canada, is in the film and spoke at the Washington Event. Many of his words were removed from the film as Smithfield Foods used the UK’s corporate friendly libel laws to silence the truth, but much was reiterated at the event,
ENVIRONMENT INDUSTRY MAGAZINE |159|
Smithfield and other factory producers across the world store the waste in stinking lagoons and spray it on fields, a system which pollutes the rivers and coastline causing massive fish kills, and sickens neighbouring residents.
Smithfield open lagoon with dead piglet at Zabin pig factory in
Poland
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