Killer Meat?

By Allison Cott
The Peanut Gallery
on Agriculture:

When you take a bite of a nice juicy hamburger, do you really know what is going on with that meat? Do you know what kind of diseases come attached to that hamburger? Much of the meat that the world is eating is coming from animals that are not in safe and sanitary conditions. The animals are drinking dirty water, living in close confined spaces, and having all types of antibiotics and drugs put into their systems.

Right now, the Senate is having an ongoing debate about how to deal with factory farms and the multitude of diseases that are being spread within them. Many of these CAFO farms have unsanitary conditions, but don’t have the money to fix the problem.

The Secretary of Agriculture wants to focus on the issue of using human antibiotics on animals because the conditions that the animals are living in are so unsanitary. The problem is that the antibiotics are very expensive and may actually be harming the animals more because these drugs are not meant for animals.

Many of the Republican Senators came up with the idea of just spreading out the animals so that disease cannot travel as fast. They believe that even if this takes a little more money it will pay off in the end because we will not have to continue with the human antibiotics. Also, this system will last for a long time, so it will be a worthwhile investment. They also know that they want to put the safety of our citizens first, before worrying about money.

Some other members of the Senate came up with a second conclusion to deal with the unsanitary factory farm conditions. They believe that that we should keep going on with creating more organic, environmental friendly, energy efficient, green farms. They think that this is an all around good idea because it is more sanitary and is also better for the environment. The only major negative is that this whole process is very costly.

Many people don’t realize how important this issue really is. The Secretary of Agriculture stated that many scientists have come to the conclusion that the H1N1 virus and the Avian Flu originated in unsanitary factory farms around the world. With natural disasters and wars killing so many people we cannot afford to have these somewhat preventable diseases being spread through the world’s food.