Zoonotic Diseases: The Next Global Plague?

An in-depth overview of an evolving human health threat

An overwhelming amount of nutritional research implicates the consumption of meat, dairy and eggs as a key cause of cancer, heart disease, diabetes, and other serious illnesses. Industrialized factory farming is also one of the main drivers of environmental degradation, from pollution to global warming, pushing humanity’s very survival toward the brink of extinction. Yet there is another potentially deadly danger linked to the eating and production of animal products: zoonotic diseases that can be transmitted from domesticated farm animals to people.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), an agency of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, food borne illnesses are responsible for about 325,000 hospitalizations and 5,000 deaths every year in the U.S. The CDC estimates that at least one-third of these illnesses and fatalities are directly attributable to the consumption of meat. However, this does not account for cases of food-borne illness caused by eating tainted dairy or eggs, the consumption of plant foods contaminated by bacteria originating from animals, or direct contact with infected animals.

The biological symmetries between humans and other animals enable some viruses to leap the species barrier when humans eat contaminated animal flesh, or by infecting farmers working in close proximity to livestock (who in turn become contagious and pass viruses to people with whom they come into contact). Some of these contagions are the result of complex evolutionary processes which make them so novel that the human immune system has not yet developed defenses against them. In other instances, bacteria growing inside the intestines of animals can afflict whoever ingests contaminated food with symptoms ranging from indigestion to fatal organ failure.

However they are transmitted, zoonotic diseases are clearly a grave threat to public health that some virologists say could potentially kill hundreds of millions of people worldwide should any of them grow into pandemics. Fortunately, there are many preventative measures we can take today to minimize the impact of this medical menace in years to come. With this in mind, below is an overview of the most common and emerging zoonotic diseases.

Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA)

• Prevalence: Over 90,000 confirmed cases and 18,000 deaths in the U.S. per year
• Symptoms: Large staph infections (usually on the face, behind the knees, under the arms, and/or on the buttocks) that can turn into abscesses and lethally infect the bloodstream, bones, joints, lungs, and heart
• Transmission: Direct contact between humans and infected pigs; possibly communicable through consumption of contaminated pork products

MRSA (pronounced “mersa”) now claims more human victims in the U.S. than the AIDS virus, and poses the greatest danger to people with compromised immune systems. Scientists have established that MRSA is transmitted to people through direct physical contact with pigs. However, fears that the disease may have entered the human food chain arose in 2008 when three patients in Scotland who had no contact with pigs were diagnosed with a variant strain known as ST398.

A team of independent researchers from the University of Iowa found MRSA present in 70 percent of the 209 hogs tested on 10 different farms in two states. Despite this evidence, the U.S. Department of Agriculture has no plans to test pigs or pork products for infection. Meanwhile, the pork industry categorically opposes testing, claiming that taking such precautions is “unnecessary to protect public health”.

Variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD, or Mad Cow Disease)

• Prevalence: 117 confirmed deaths worldwide since 1990
  
• Symptoms: Loss of muscle control, changes in personality, impaired memory, and degenerating vision rapidly leading to severe dementia and death
• Transmission: Consumption of beef products infected with prions (aberrant protein agents) from the brain or spinal cord tissue of cattle

For many years, farmers inexpensively fattened cattle to slaughter weight by feeding them a high-protein diet made from the detritus on the slaughterhouse floor — including the bones, entrails, brains, and spinal cords of other cattle, which is where the virtually indestructible prions that cause bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) reside. BSE was nicknamed “Mad Cow Disease” because the prions damage bovine’s brains, causing them to exhibit symptoms of “madness” such as uncoordinated movement, loss of balance, and radical temperamental alterations. People who contract vCJD (the human equivalent of BSE) display similar behavioral abnormalities as the prions rapidly destroy their brains.

The disease typically gestates for a period of years in the body, but usually kills its victims within weeks or months of the onset of symptoms. The vast majority of cases in both humans and cattle have occurred in the United Kingdom, but in the U.S., three BSE-infected cattle have been found, and three humans are know to have contracted vCJD. Notably, the CDC does not require doctors and hospitals to report when patients are diagnosed with the disease (so the number of affected could be considerably higher), and the USDA scaled back its detection efforts by about 90 percent in 2006 based on its claim that there is only “a very, very low level of BSE in the United States”.

H1N1 (Swine Flu)

• Prevalence: In the 2009-2010 outbreak, over 16,455 confirmed human deaths worldwide, including 2,009 deaths in the U.S.
  
• Symptoms: Fever, cough, sore throat, runny or stuffy nose, muscle stiffness, headache, chills, fatigue, diarrhea, and vomiting
• Transmission: Humans contract H1N1 through direct contact with infected pigs (e.g., in hog barns on farms), then spread the virus to other people; there have been no documented cases of infection through consumption of pork products
  

H1N1 (commonly known as “swine flu”) gets its abbreviated name from the hemagglutinin (type 1 of 16) that binds the recombinant human-pig-bird virus to the host cell (the first of 9 types of neuraminidase). The recent H1N1 outbreak is descended from an influenza pandemic that killed more than 50 million people worldwide in 1918 and 1919, and recurred several times throughout the 20th century in different locations. Indeed, the evolutionary trajectory of the virus has been tracked by research identically matching 80 percent of the newest H1N1 strain’s gene sequences to a superbug that first emerged in 1998 from a Smithfield pig processing plant in North Carolina (the top pork-producing state in the U.S.) and ravaged the North American pig population.

While the virus had originally spread from pigs to farm employees working in close proximity to contaminated animals, the first case of a human infecting a hog herd occurred in Alberta, Canada. Soon after this discovery, the Egyptian government ordered the slaughter of the entire nation’s pig population – about 400,000 animals – ostensibly to stem the spread of H1N1 to humans. As the United Nations criticized the move as “a real mistake” that would do nothing to protect the populace, animal rights groups maintained that factory farms (rather than pigs) were responsible for the virus, and culling herds would be cruel and counterproductive.

H5N1 (Avian Flu)

• Prevalence: 486 confirmed cases and 287 human fatalities worldwide; no reported human cases in the U.S.
  
• Symptoms: Viral pneumonia, respiratory distress, and multiple organ failure
• Transmission: Most cases are the result of direct physical contact with infected birds on farms and in live markets, or surfaces contaminated with their feces; passage of the virus from person-to-person remains relatively rare
  

Like other avian flu viruses, H5N1 is naturally present in the intestines of wild birds and rarely causes them to be sick, but this disease is devastating to domestic chickens, turkeys, ducks, and geese unfortunate enough to contract it. Transmitted via saliva, mucus or feces, H5N1 is highly communicable among avian populations, and can very quickly devastate whole flocks (with an average mortality rate near 90 percent) and expand to others. Notably, while this virus does not spread as easily to humans, it is almost as deadly, killing more than half the people it has infected.

H5N1 was first found in the human population in 1997, and while most of the cases have occurred in Indonesia, the virus has also struck African and European countries. Given the relatively high fatality rate associated with H5N1, scientists are concerned about this strain mutating into a form that can pass more easily from person-to-person and cause a global pandemic that could claim hundreds of millions of lives. Laboratory research suggests that medications currently on the market could be used to effectively treat people for avian influenza, but experts also warn that the virus could quickly develop resistance to these drugs.

Salmonellosis

• Prevalence: Kills several thousand people worldwide (approximately 580 in the U.S.) every year
• Symptoms: Fever, abdominal cramps and diarrhea (which can spread infection to the bloodstream and become fatal)
• Transmission: Salmonella typically infects people who consume foods contaminated with animal feces (usually meat, milk or eggs, but salmonella-tainted manure from farms can also poison fruits and vegetables)

With more than 40,000 cases diagnosed each year in the U.S., salmonellosis is among the most common intestinal infections affecting the human population. Infants, the elderly and persons with compromised immune systems are the most vulnerable to salmonella bacteria, which comes from the digestive tract of birds, reptiles and mammals. Studies have found that about 25 percent of chickens sold in the U.S. are contaminated with salmonella.

Persons infected with salmonella typically exhibit symptoms within 6 to 48 hours of ingesting the bacterium, and recovery usually takes about a week. Antibiotics are often not an effective treatment for salmonellosis because many strains have become antibiotic-resistant, and because these compounds can slow the process of intestinal shedding necessary for recuperation. Cooking food thoroughly and washing all surfaces that come into contact with raw meat can help prevent the spread of infection.

Escherichia coli 0157:H7

• Prevalence: Causes approximately 73,480 illnesses, 2,168 hospitalizations and 61 deaths a year in the U.S.
• Symptoms: Abdominal cramps, diarrhea, fever, and vomiting; approximately 10 percent of subjects (mostly children and the elderly) develop haemolytic uraemic syndrome (HUS), a disease that causes acute renal failure in as many as 5 percent of those who contract it
  
• Transmission: Most infections are the result of physical contact with infected people or animals, or the consumption of contaminated water or food (most commonly milk or cheese that has not been pasteurized); can also be passed from person to person
  

One of the most common bacteria living in the digestive tract of humans and other animals, E. coli is usually harmless to its hosts. However, some strains make people sick, and one particular variety that has developed in the intestines of cattle (E. coli 0157:H7) has the power to kill. Research indicates that as much as 3 percent of the U.S. cattle herd may harbor this deadly contagion.

E. coli spreads very easily, as ingesting only a tiny amount of bacteria (as little as 10 microbes) can cause serious illness and even death. Food contaminated with E. coli looks, smells and tastes the same as nontoxic food, so it is impossible to tell using just one’s senses whether meat, dairy and other products (such as alfalfa sprouts and other vegetables) are safe to eat. Cooking food thoroughly and washing all surfaces that come into contact with raw meat can help prevent the spread of infection.

Campylobacteriosis

• Prevalence: Approximately 2.4 million cases and 124 deaths in the U.S. every year
• Symptoms: Diarrhea, abdominal pain, nausea, vomiting and fever; can become life-threatening to persons with compromised immune systems if it infects the bloodstream
• Transmission: Most cases are caused by eating raw or undercooked poultry, or cross-contamination of other foods by infected flesh; outbreaks are also associated with the consumption of unpasteurized milk or infected water

By far the most common cause of food-borne illness, campylobacter affects almost 1 percent of the U.S. population every year. This bacterium naturally resides in the intestinal tracts of mammals and birds, doing them no harm. However, ingesting it can cause humans to suffer severe sickness and even death.

Studies indicate that more than one-half of raw chicken carcasses sold in the U.S. contain campylobacter. However, it is a relatively fragile bacterium that can be killed by drying, exposure to oxygen, excessive heat (i.e., cooking), and the pasteurization process. Cooking food thoroughly and washing all surfaces that come into contact with raw poultry can help prevent the spread of infection.

Factory Farms: Breeding Grounds for Zoonotic Diseases

Meat-borne diseases have plagued humankind since our pre-historical hunting and gathering days, but a relatively recent (mid-20th century) agricultural innovation – factory farming – has created a “perfect storm” of conditions for the rampant development and rapid dissemination of new pathogens among the human population. Some of the profit-driven techniques steering the world toward impending disaster include:

• Overcrowding – Factory farms typically cram thousands of animals together in a single massive building where they spend most of their lives. Population density is increased through the use of intensive constriction devices, such as battery cages (for egg-laying hens) and gestation crates (for pregnant sows). Keeping animals packed together in regimented rows saves space and makes large farms easier to manage, but also greatly amplifies the spread of contagions through constant close contact.

• Environmental deprivation – The stress caused by intensive confinement, lack of exercise, unnatural diet, absence of sunlight, taking children away from mothers, and other traumatic factors impairs animals’ immune systems to the point where their bodies become dangerously susceptible to disease. The living conditions at Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFO) are so bad that many animals would not survive without the antibiotics farmers constantly feed them. In fact, the Union of Concerned Scientists estimates that about 70 percent of the antibiotics administered in the U.S. are given to farm animals, an abusive practice that is making these drugs less effective in the treatment of human diseases.

• Substandard sanitation – The average CAFO generates millions of gallons of waste a year, and animals therefore typically wind up standing and lying in their own decaying feces. As the waste putrefies on the ground, it also fouls the air with ammonia, methane, hydrogen sulfide, and other toxic gasses that diminish immunity and breed respiratory infections. Not surprisingly, microbes from animal feces are the primary source of most foodborne pathogens, often contaminating meat during the slaughter process.

Downed animals – those too sick or injured to stand or walk – are more likely to carry dangerous viruses or bacteria that can be transmitted to humans who come into contact with them or eat their flesh. In March 2009, the U.S. government announced a new rule banning the slaughter of all downed cattle, a move that will help protect the public from zoonotic diseases and prevent much unnecessary animal suffering. However, it is still legal to cruelly force other species of animals to the kill floor for processing by prodding them with electric shocks, dragging them by chains, or pushing them with forklifts.

As long as producers can make even a small amount of profit from the flesh and blood of downed animals, there will be an incentive to abuse them without regard for their suffering and endanger people’s health by processing potentially diseased animals into food. You can take a stand for human health and farm animals by going vegan and contacting Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack urging him to extend the ban on slaughtering downed cattle to all animals used for food.

Preposterous: The Presidential Turkey Pardon

The perverse absurdity of a reverse animal sacrifice

Every Thanksgiving, at a White House ceremony punctuated by much media fanfare, the President of the United States symbolically “pardons” a single turkey — just one day before he joins the rest of America in devouring 45 million others. Legend has it that Abraham Lincoln started the custom one Thanksgiving day in the 1860s by sparing his son Tad’s “pet” turkey from the axe, but the pardon only became an official American tradition in the late 1980s when George H.W. Bush* occupied the Oval Office. Lincoln’s gesture of historical kindness has since evolved into a bizarre ritual in which the country lightheartedly hails saving the life of one turkey in order to displace the unconscious collective guilt for killing millions more.

This year, the farce of this reverse animal sacrifice reached new heights of ridiculousness with White House videographer Arun Chaudhary’s YouTube video parody preview. In this short spoof (of what exactly, I’m not sure), 2009’s chosen turkey (named Courage) “does the slow walk right through the gates outside 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, past ‘Pebble Beach’ where reporters do stand-up television shots, through the West Wing and Oval Office into the Rose Garden.” So rather than solemnly acknowledging all the millions of birds who are summarily slaughtered for this bloated holiday buffet, we treat their deaths like a big joke — ha ha, industrialized mass murder is just so inherently hilarious, right?!

In an attempt to further salve society’s buried remorse for all the many tons of bird blood spilled throughout November at friendly neighborhood abattoirs, Courage gets to live out the rest of his natural days at Disneyland. But animal advocacy organization Farm Sanctuary** says the “Frontierland” exhibit of this Southern California theme park is not the “The Happiest Place on Earth” for turkeys, and that courage and his alternate*** should be moved to one of their shelters for safekeeping. In a press release, the group charged that “The Walt Disney Company…has shown that it lacks the ability to provide (adequate) care” because they feed the birds “a high-calorie, high-fat diet formulated for rapid weight gain, a likely cause of (their) premature deaths.” The way we treat our “rescued” Thanksgiving turkeys is a representation of what this holiday means to us, and begs a necessary question: Is dying young from obesity-related causes at the world’s most corporatized amusement park really the kind of freedom our pilgrim forebears had in mind when they shared their first harvest meal with the local natives?

A Real “Indian” Pre-Thanksgiving

Just yesterday, the Obamas held their first official state dinner at the White House honoring Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, a vegetarian world leader. While (contrary to media reports) not all the food served was strictly vegetarian****, the menu showed some small awareness on the President’s part that meat doesn’t have to be the centerpiece of a fulfilling meal — or our diets. And yet, come tomorrow, he and the rest of the First Family will be digesting a customary turkey flesh feast, so I guess Obama really didn’t learn all that much from Mr. Singh’s ethical example.

Now, I’m just an average guy, nothing particularly special or extraordinary about me (for instance, I haven’t won a Nobel Peace Prize). Even so, I’ll be non-violently “pardoning” a turkey for real this Thanksgiving***** by not eating one — just the same way I’ve been pardoning turkeys every day of my life for the last 14½ years. Meanwhile, President Obama (like other U.S. Commander in Chiefs before him) is making a public show of offering amnesty to one turkey while simultaneously ordering another to be killed for his table — a behavioral contradiction that seems rather shallow and hypocritical. I mean, it’s not like either of these turkeys deserved to die, and yet one is given the full celebrity treatment while the other is condemned like a convicted criminal on Death Row, forever nameless, along with millions of his kind.

The penitentiary metaphor is perfectly apt here, for turkeys are indeed incarcerated for their entire lives on factory farms, helplessly awaiting execution in their dark, dirty prisons — despite the fact that they have committed no crimes (unless being born a member of their particular avian species can be considered a punishable offense). Ironically, humankind has complicitly committed unspeakably unnatural atrocities against turkeys for generations in government-certified factory farms and slaughterhouses. But we wouldn’t want to bring any of that up, because it might ruin someone’s appetite for slow-roasted wings, breasts and “drumsticks”!

Turkeys are affectionate, intelligent animals who deserve compassion, not torture. They are innocent victims who love life and deserve to live as much as anyone else. In that sense, a supposed “pardon” granted by our nation’s leader to a single turkey appears not as an act of mercy, but rather a disingenuous attempt to officially sanctify senseless slaughter in the name of commercialized gluttony.


* I originally wrote that John F. Kennedy was the first President to pardon a turkey for Thanksgiving, but later found out that Bush Sr. was the first to officially perform the pardoning ceremony, a custom which all subsequent Presidents have followed.
** In the interest of full disclosure, Farm Sanctuary was my employer from 2008-2009.
*** A Vice Turkey has also been appointed to take command should Courage for some reason be rendered unable to perform the duties associated with his post.
**** Along with a wide selection of both vegetarian and vegan options, the executive chefs prepared Green Curry Prawns for guests.
***** For the first time in many a year, I’ll be the sole vegetarian dining with an extended family of committed carnivores.

Help Farmworkers, Help Farm Animals

New Yorkers: Urge your Senators to vote YES on S.2247

“The African is incapable of self-care and sinks into lunacy under the burden of freedom. It is a mercy to him to give him the guardianship and protection from mental death.”
– Former U.S. Vice President John C. Calhoun regarding slaves (circa 1844)

“This notion that they need to rest is completely futile. They don’t like to rest. They want to work seven days.”
– Hudson Valley Foie Gras Co-Owner Izzy Yanay regarding farmworkers (circa 2009)

It is our moral obligation as citizens of a democracy to ensure that every worker in America has the same basic rights as every other, regardless of what job they do. Yet even now in the 21st century, as the result of a 71-year-old compromise with segregationist Dixiecrats during the New Deal era, those who toil in New York State’s agricultural fields and factory farms are still denied the fundamental benefits that the rest of us take for granted. And I’m talking here about some of the most basic employment expectations, like getting at least one day of rest a week, disability insurance, collective bargaining options, and overtime pay for working extra hours.

Though California passed the first laws rectifying this disparity in the mid-1970s and most other states have since followed suit, New York still suffers the unrepentant repercussions of blatantly racist government policies more than seven decades after their codification. To redress this longstanding injustice, a broad coalition of labor advocates, student activists, religious groups, and state legislators are now unifying behind the Farmworkers Fair Labor Practices Act (A.1867/ S.2247), and after a long struggle are finally within reach of victory. I’m glad that some animal advocates have already cast their lot with the workers, but hope that the animal protection movement as a whole will join them in this fight for equal treatment under the law, because:

1) We vegans eat the New York-grown apples, grapes, potatoes, corn, cabbage, and other plant foods that farmworkers help raise and harvest, and our purchases may well be subsidizing an exploitive system that denies tens of thousands of people the guaranteed protections that we enjoy.

2) If he were alive today, trailblazing farm unionizer and fellow vegan Cesar Chávez would be leading the charge for these workers’ civil rights.

3) Of the approximately 80,000 farmworkers employed by New York State’s multi-billion agriculture industry, more than half are documented migrant workers and illegal immigrants of Latino descent who are compelled to endure terrible working conditions under threat of losing their livelihoods and being forced out of the U.S.

4) There is no ethical justification for economically discriminating against people based on ethnicity, class or nationality.

5) Achieving parity for those working in factory farms will also dramatically reduce incidences of animal abuse.

Workers are Animals, Too

There are probably some animal advocates out there who would argue that siding with people who harm animals for a living is speciesist because it prioritizes farm workers’ interests over animals’ well-being. While I acknowledge the kernel of philosophical legitimacy at the core of this claim, I would counter by pragmatically pointing out that ignoring the farmworkers’ plight helps neither them nor the animals, but rather bolsters the power of those who abuse both — the factory farm owners. Just as Nobel Prize-winning author and holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel said, “We must take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.” In this case, the only way we can take the animals’ side is by siding with the workers against the industry that oppresses them.

Please bear with me while I explain. These laborers typically work 60 to 70 hour weeks, and yet most still live below the poverty line. Many are allowed to reside in the U.S. only temporarily via the H-2A guest worker program, which strictly prohibits them during that limited period from working for anyone besides the employer who originally hired them. Such restrictions leave these legal workers completely at farm owners’ mercy, and reluctant to petition for even the meager protections they are entitled to because reprisals could very well entail not only job loss but summary deportation.

Meanwhile, the health and safety risks most factory farm hands undergo on a daily basis are far beyond what American workers in virtually every other industry are ever exposed to. Being kicked by cows and bitten by pigs are the least of these hazards: peer-reviewed field studies indicate that an inordinate number of U.S. farmworkers are afflicted with acute and chronic respiratory diseases from constantly inhaling air that is rife with toxic gases emanating from the tons of feces and urine expelled by farm animals at a typical concentrated livestock facility. Farmworkers also suffer disproportionately from symptoms such as diarrhea, nausea, abdominal pain, vomiting, and fever, but show up to work every day without fail because their employers are not required to provide them with paid sick leave, and taking a day off without pay could mean losing one’s job altogether.

On Down the Food Chain: Victims Become Victimizers

As far as how this affects farm animals, think about it: such vulnerable employees are unlikely to report labor law violations, so they certainly aren’t going to speak up when someone breaks the state’s minimal animal welfare statutes. In fact, surveys show most farmworkers are never even informed that such laws exist. What’s most disturbing and destructive about this situation is that the frustrations caused by working excruciatingly long hours for low wages in stressful and often dangerous conditions greatly increase the probability that farmworkers will commit egregious acts of animal cruelty.

First, it’s essential to understand that the factory farm environment is intrinsically antithetical to ethical norms. Consider, for example, what workers go through every day at Hudson Valley Foie Gras in Upstate New York. Inside giant warehouses, tens of thousands of ducks are confined in body-sized stalls and force-fed excessive amounts of corn-mash for a period of 30 days before they are killed and their bloated and diseased livers harvested for a high-priced gourmet delicacy. Once the compulsory gorging cycle begins, the birds will only accept food from the same person at each meal, so workers (who must individually feed hundreds of animals each day) spend about 12 hours a day (interspersed throughout each 24-hour period), seven days a week for four full weeks shoving pneumatic tubes down ducks’ esophagi and pumping them full of food. On the 31st day, some workers get a day off, then come back to work after a 24-hour leave to start the cycle all over again.

Second, if this sounds sick to you, remember: the agriculture industry seriously maintains that these conditions are perfectly normal, healthy and “humane” for both the workers and animals. To reiterate, the description above is not an aberration but the legal and accepted norm for American foie gras production, and similarly horrific conditions are common at other factory farms. Yet, as we animal activists know all too well from viddying ultraviolent sinnys of undercover investigations showing workers kicking chickens like footballs and lethally smashing piglets’ heads against the floor, superfluously abusive incidents are also all too common behind the bloody walls of these licensed hellholes.





The New York State Assembly has already passed their version of the Farmworkers Fair Labor Practices Act (A.1867), and 28 of the 32 votes we need for a majority in the Senate have been secured. It’s therefore looking pretty good, but influential agribusiness lobbies are actively pressuring lawmakers to defeat this measure, so we need to make one final push to get this bill passed. With the Senate due back from their summer recess in September, you can make a difference now by checking whether your State Senator is already a co-sponsor of S.2247. Depending on their status, contact their office and take one of the following actions:

- If they oppose: Tell your Senator that, as a constituent and a voter, you strongly believe in equal treatment under the law for farmworkers, and urge them to reconsider their position on this important issue. You may wish to mention that polls show New Yorkers overwhelmingly support expanded rights for farmworkers.

- If they are already on board: Let your Senator know that you greatly appreciate their support for this bill, and urge them to 1) persuade their colleagues who have not yet signed on that it is time for New York to stop denying farmworkers the fundamental rights they have earned and deserve, and 2) work to put this bill on the legislative agenda so the full Senate can finally vote on it.

Attack of the Anti-Prop 2’s!

Bills to kill farm animal protection invade three states

“This is Michigan, not California. We’re not going to allow an outside group to come into Michigan and give chickens the right to drive cars.”

- Michigan State Representative and House Agriculture Chairman Mike Simpson*

Since 2002, a total of six states have passed laws banning one or more of the main intensive confinement mechanisms factory farms use to maximize revenue (i.e., battery cages for egg-laying hens, gestation crates for pregnant pigs, and veal crates for calves). In the last year alone, four more state legislatures have introduced bills to ban all three of these industry-standard constraint systems — and they certainly won’t be the last to ponder such measures.

If you were a captain of the farm animal exploitation industry whose bottom line depended on treating cows, pigs and chickens however you damn well pleased, wouldn’t this revolting development freak you out? Well, of course, but the real question is, what would you do about it? Would you a) go about your business as usual and hope that your home state doesn’t try to restrict your legal right to abuse animals, b) proactively make operational changes that reflect current public attitudes about animal welfare, or c) go on the offensive by calling in some favors from your powerful politician friends who owe you big for those meaty campaign contributions you’ve been dishing out over the years?

You don’t need to be a whiz at multiple choice tests to know which one of these strategies corporate magnates in at least three states have collectively opted for:

- Michigan lawmakers have introduced HB 5127 and HB 5128, two bills that would create a statute to codify Big Ag’s animal welfare guidelines into law. Needless to say, their idea of “animal welfare” includes giving each egg-laying hen just 67 square inches of cage space, grinding their male chicks up alive for fertilizer as soon as they are born, and many other cruel but routine atrocities.

- Ohio legislators have already placed a “livestock standards” measure on the November 2009 ballot for voters’ consideration that would amend the State Constitution and give a council dominated by livestock industry “experts” sole authority to set “care and well-being” standards for the treatment of farm animals. Passage of this proposition would preempt lawmakers from debating animal welfare issues and be used to delude the public into believing that farm animals are not subjected to abusive practices when in fact they are.

- The Oklahoma legislature passed a law earlier this year that gives the the Department of Agriculture, Food, and Forestry exclusive authority to rule on animal welfare issues in the state. Essentially, this prohibits local governments from creating ordinances regarding “the care and handling of livestock” that are more restrictive than those enacted by the State Ag Department.

Why, you may wonder, can’t the government allow voters or their democratically-elected representatives decide where to draw the line on cruelty to farm animals? Because, as Michigan House Bills sponsor Representative Don Armes argues, these bills are needed to “ensure that livestock regulations are developed by experts at the state level who know what they’re doing.” And who are these quote-unquote “experts” to whom Rep. Armes so deferentially cedes all power? Why, the very same skilled professionals who made fortunes by enslaving, torturing, killing, and selling animals for profit, of course!

Despite such reassurances from trusted elected officials like Rep. Armes, the farm animal rights activists who have devoted much of their efforts in recent years to passing anti-confinement bills and initiatives have a different view of this matter. “These measures are obviously a counterattack against the success of Prop 2,” claims Paul Shapiro, Senior Director of HSUS’s Factory Farming Campaign. “The basic idea is to give the appearance of regulation, but in reality these programs won’t prohibit any of the inhumane practices that are already standard in the agriculture industry. In fact, they would actually codify the cruel status quo into law, effectively putting the foxes in charge of guarding the henhouse.”

Shapiro also points out that, with the full force of the mighty agribusiness lobby behind them, industry-friendly lawmakers have been able to move these bills forward quickly in an attempt to avoid legislative and public scrutiny. In response, HSUS is actively encouraging state lawmakers in Michigan to oppose the House Bills and mobilizing their members to put pressure on elected officials by contacting their offices. A campaign to inform Ohio voters about the deceptive intentions behind the November 2009 proposition is already in the planning stages, and the organization may attempt to place its own pro-animal measure on the ballot in 2010.

The crucial question here for both sides is, are these industry-driven proposals the magic bullet agribusiness needs to stop the state-to-state spread of Prop 2-inspired bills and ballot initiatives? Similarly, will they be able to deceive people into believing that current agribusiness practices — like confining animals in cages and crates, debeaking chickens and tail-docking cows — constitute “humane” treatment of living, feeling creatures? The answers depend in large measure on the outcomes in Michigan and Ohio — but much more so, in a deeper sense, on the determination, drive and energy of farm animal rights activists.

* It is important to note that, despite Rep. Simpson’s claim, chickens cannot legally drive automobiles in California: when Prop 2 is enacted in 2015, it will simply ensure that egg-laying hens (as well as breeding sows and veal calves) have enough room to stand up, stretch their limbs, and lie down without bumping up against a wall or another animal. The fact that the Honorable Mr. Simpson (sponsor of the Michigan animal "welfare" standards bills) issued this hyperbolic statement signifies nothing more than the fact that he has been watching too many old Foster Farms commercials, and that he is a pathetic suck-up and sellout to the animal corpse-food industry.

Explore Farm Sanctuary's Virtual Experience

Tour shelters & investigate slaughterhouses from your computer

For over a year now, I've been working as a writer/editor for Farm Sanctuary, North America's first and still largest rescue and shelter organization for “food” animals. In fact, about two weeks ago, I relocated from San Francisco to New York so I could be present at the organization's headquarters in Watkins Glen and get personally acquainted with some of the hundreds of rescued farm animals who reside there. Though I don't actually have a place to live yet and I'm currently lodging with my folks on Long Island, I'm hoping that this enhanced proximity will add new layers of depth to my writing — and perhaps make me a better person, too.*

I chose to make my move in April not only for weather-related reasons, but also because springtime marks the beginning of Farm Sanctuary's annual tour season. Every year from May to October, thousands of people from around the globe visit the non-profit's shelters in upstate New York and northern California to meet & greet rescued farm animals face-to-face. It's not hype or hyperbole to say that these lucky cows, pigs, sheep, goats, chickens, ducks, geese, turkeys, and rabbits live in a pastoral paradise that may be about as close to Utopia as farm animals can get on this mortal coil.

Virtually Veg

Farm Sanctuary's 2009 tour season is even more special than it would be during an average year because we recently launched an innovative new project called the Virtual Experience that allows anyone to visit the organization's shelters (as well as different kinds of factory farms and slaughterhouses) online anytime. In this synthesized electronic environment, you'll find photos and videos of some of the animals who live at Farm Sanctuary, along with text (written by Yours Truly) that conveys heartwarming rescue stories, details about animals' individual personalities, and fascinating facts concerning each species' unique habits and abilities. You'll also see vividly-rendered versions of the barns, pastures and ponds that comprise Farm Sanctuary's gorgeous grounds.

Graphic artist Sephanie Gelish – who has studied everything from video game design and 3D modeling to digital photography – built the Virtual Experience in Adobe Flash, an exceptionally versatile software suite that enables programmers to integrate interactive animation with embedded audiovisual elements for enhanced realism. Others who contributed to the project include Farm Sanctuary Video Coordinator Erin Howard, who gathered all of the photos and video, and Communications Manager Natalie Bowman, who edited and guided the whole enterprise to fruition. With an enthusiastic avatar always ready at the click of a mouse to snap photos of animals on 14 distinct levels representing different sections of Farm Sanctuary's shelters, the Virtual Experience is a place where you can go to learn, explore...and just have fun! Be sure to encourage your friends to pay the animals a visit as well!

The Dark Side

The fortunate few rescued animals living at Farm Sanctuary account for only an infinitesimal fraction of the tens of billions who are callously killed for food each year around the globe. As such, these individuals act as ambassadors whose gentleness and affection awakens compassion, transforms consciousness, and inspires people to make more humane dietary choices. While you'll meet these beloved animals on the first leg of the Virtual Experience, those inhabiting the second are condemned to lifelong torture and pain that ends in violent death well before their natural time.

The factory farm section of the Virtual Experience exposes the disturbingly harsh reality that animals raised for beef, pork, poultry, dairy, veal, and foie gras are subjected to for their entire lives. Here you become an intrepid investigator witnessing the routine cruelty perpetrated behind a curtain of deception, and see actual photos and videos from more than two decades of Farm Sanctuary investigations documenting standardized animal abuse in the agribusiness industry. Incidentally, I wrote the text for this part of the Virtual Experience as well, so I hope you'll find it informative and engaging.

Between Heaven and Hell

It's normal to be revolted by the horrors taking place every day in stockyards, factory farms and slaughterhouses: if seeing these atrocities makes you feel frightened, anxious or outraged, then rest assured that you have a healthy conscience which identifies with others who are suffering, and recognizes how wrong it is to inflict pain and death on innocents. It is this empathic impetus that drives all of us at Farm Sanctuary to imagine a future (perhaps many generations hence) when humanity stops murdering members of other species to please our palates. A visit to one of Farm Sanctuary's facilities, or a spin around the shelter segment of the Virtual Experience, can provide an enlightening glimpse of what such a world might be like.

Yet, if animal advocates are to have any hope of realizing the vision of peace and harmony that burns within our hearts, we must look both to the candle flame that Farm Sanctuary and others have tended as a beacon of illumination and also at the repugnant abominations that most people instinctively turn away from in disgust. Directly facing our fears empowers us to overcome them, and in the case of farm animals, billions upon billions of lives literally depend on our courage to take action. The Virtual Experience adds another side to Farm Sanctuary's already multifaceted efforts to end the exploitation of intelligent, emotionally-complex living beings, and will greatly increase the number of people who are able to “visit” and befriend the amazing animals who call their shelters home.


* Farm Sanctuary laid me off from this job in October 2009, and I moved back to San Francisco in January 2010: whether this cross-cross-country move has made me a better person or not is still a matter of some debate within my own mind.

Congress Ponders Livestock Antibiotic Ban

Bill to preserve human health would also elevate animal welfare

Thanks to antibiotics, you are 20 times less likely to die from a simple infection in 2009 than you would have been if you had lived before the discovery of antibiotics less than a century ago. Penicillin was the first antibiotic to be discovered, and was not even known to be medically useful until World War II. Since then, this revolutionary "miracle drug" has saved millions upon millions of lives. But now, reckless agribusiness policies could render penicillin and other antibiotics all but useless if we don't stop them.

Today, doctors can prescribe hundreds of different types of antibiotics to treat everything from skin infections and food poisoning to tonsillitis and STDs. But you know what happens when we use antibiotics when we don't really need them? Bacterial organisms evolve and become resistant to antibiotics, effectively neutralizing medicine's power to fight disease. And today, because of the irresponsible overuse and misuse of antibiotics, we face a crisis of epidemic proportions with the development of mutant superbugs — extremely hazardous bacterial strains that, through natural selection, have survived and grown so powerful that they cannot be stopped using conventional antibiotics.

Phactory Pharming

Shockingly, most antibiotics in the U.S. are not given to sick people, but to animals on factory farms. It is estimated that 70% of all antimicrobials administered in this country (about 25 million pounds a year) are fed to livestock who are then eaten by people, making the population at large more vulnerable to antibiotic-resistant bacteria and less responsive to treatment. And it's not just meat eaters whose health and safety are compromised by the non-therapeutic use of antibiotics in agriculture — vegans are vulnerable too, because pathogens and pharmaceutically-active compounds can be transmitted to us through animal feces that winds up in our food and water.

Why are farmers feeding antibiotics to herds and flocks of ostensibly healthy animals raised for meat, milk and eggs anyway? Well, because farm animals who start out healthy when they are born tend to get sick after spending some time densely packed together in dark, sunless cages or sheds wallowing in their own feces. Many farm animals are not born healthy because their genetic codes have been modified to give them physical characteristics that are market-friendly but inherently debilitating. These include chickens whose bodies grow so fast that their legs break underneath the weight; "designer" cows with massive swelling udders who produce ten times as much milk as their unmodified sisters; and humongous "double-muscled" cattle who look like they've been taking steroids. Factory farmers also administer antibiotics as a preventive measure against disease caused by farm animals' unnatural diet of pesticide-ridden corn and soy. 

So farmers force animals to live in sickening conditions to increase profitability, and put antibiotics in their feed for two reasons: to accelerate their growth, and prevent them from simply dying of the infectious bacterial diseases that profligate in these darkened dens of feculence. And then, of course, when animals really do get sick, antibiotics no longer work properly because they've been taking them for so long that their bodies have developed an immunity.

Over time, factory farms become virtually perfect laboratories for the creation of new antibiotic-resistant bacterial strains: ideal breeding grounds where microbes can adapt and become totally new and more potent forms. One of the most deadly permutations brewed so far on the factory farm is methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), a disease transmitted from pigs to humans which now claims more lives in the U.S. — approximately 18,000 victims a year — than the AIDS virus. Symptoms of MRSA include massive pimples (that most commonly sprout on the face, under the arms, behind the knees, and on the butt), as well as fatal heart failure.

Ban the Insanity

To address the myriad problems described above, U.S. Representative Louise Slaughter introduced a bill last week called the Preservation of Antibiotics for Medical Treatment Act of 2009 (PAMTA for short). If passed, it would prohibit the sub-therapeutic use of seven classes of antibiotics on farm animals by amending the Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act. In addition to making antibiotics more effective in the treatment of human disease, decreasing the frequency and duration of hospital visits, and perhaps preventing a future superbug from causing the next Black Plague, PAMTA would save the U.S. an estimated $4 to $5 billion a year on healthcare costs.

Plus, it would force factory farms to treat their animals somewhat better, because without the convenient crutch of antibiotics to lean on, producers will have to improve living conditions for livestock just to get them to market. Like other industries, the meat-dairy-egg consortium has calculated "acceptable losses" into their financial equations. That is, it's much cheaper to crowd animals together and have a certain percentage of them die from stress, injuries and diseases than it is to make their environment more humane. Currently, 8.6% of farm animals die before slaughter: downed cows, pigs killed by swine flu, chickens dead from heart failure because their bodies grew too fast, so on and so on. That's 875 million animals a year.
 
If it were economical for factory farmers to lower that number, they would. And if they could make even more money by crowding even more animals together in smaller spaces and feeding them even more antibiotics, they would do that too. However, agriculture accountants know that there is a point of diminishing financial returns because, when too many animals die, it eats into profits. 

Studies have proven that simply providing animals with a more sanitary environment does at least as much to prevent bacterial infection as the routine administration of non-therapeutic antibiotics. But if sub-therapeutic antibiotics were banned in agriculture and factory farms didn't improve animal welfare, many more of their "livestock" would die before slaughter. The industry will therefore have to provide animals, for all practical purposes, with healthier food and better living conditions based purely on fiscal considerations.





Use this Pew Charitable Trusts alert to urge your congressional representative to co-sponsor and support PAMTA. To have the most impact, customize the sample letter using your own words, and follow up with a quick phone call or letter to your legislator.

President Obama Announces Downed Cattle Ban

Decision is a milestone victory for animal welfare and food safety

Today, President Barack Obama announced in his weekly video address that the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) will finally ban the slaughter of all downed cows for food. This is a major win for animal protection and consumer health advocates that has been in the making since the early 1990s, when organizations like Farm Sanctuary and HSUS started pushing the government to pass legislation prohibiting producers from dragging sick, crippled cattle to the killing floor for processing. Significantly, Obama took action on this important issue only 54 days into his still-young presidency, sending the message that he takes food safety and animal welfare seriously.

Elected and appointed officials must (or should) know by now that downed animals are far more likely than their ambulatory counterparts to carry diseases such as mad cow and bacteria like E. coli that can be fatal to humans who eat their meat. During one of the eight congressional hearings held last year following the largest beef recall in U.S. history, many of them would have also seen HSUS’s undercover video exposé showing workers at the Hallmark/Westland Meat Company packing plant in Chino, California abusing downed cows by ramming them with forklifts and shocking them with electric prods. Nevertheless, the USDA has allowed producers to process cattle who become downed after reaching the slaughterhouse since 2007. The ban Obama announced today will close this legal loophole by permanently prohibiting the slaughter of all downed cattle for food, no matter when they become disabled.

Animals typically become downers because of the way they are raised on factory farms: genetically bred for fast growth, crowded together or confined in cages or crates, mutilated without anesthetic, and fed garbage, the only reason that any factory farmed animals can actually walk to their own deaths is that they are routinely pumped up with non-therapeutic antibiotics. Because downed animals are already suffering greatly when they get to the slaughterhouse, current laws must be reformed to require timely euthanization of cattle deemed unfit for human consumption in order for the ban to actually prevent animals from lingering in pain. I assume that such a provision will be put in place (but cannot presently find any corroborating details), and that some kind of enforcement mechanisms will be implemented.

Political Prognostications and Appointees

In September 2008, I wrote a blog post analyzing Obama’s record on animal issues, concluding that he would be far more likely to support and promote animal causes than his opponent, Republican candidate John McCain, based on their respective legislative histories. In January, I wrote my monthly column for The Animal World magazine about Tom Vilsack, Obama’s appointee to Secretary of Agriculture, examining his public service career and speculating as to whether he would challenge Big Ag's mistreatment of animals. Well, it seems like the administration is on the right track so far: here’s hoping they keep up the momentum and accomplish even more for animals in the coming four years.

Secretary Vilsack called the downed cow ban "a step forward for both food safety and the standards for humane treatment of animals," which is a brave statement for someone in his position, given that most previous Secretaries of Agriculture have been unwilling to even acknowledge farm animal welfare as a legitimate concern for fear of blowback from powerful agribusiness interests. For his own part, President Obama also made some bold assertions in his video address. For example, after qualifying that "the United States is one of the safest places in the world to buy groceries at a supermarket," he called the nation’s food safety inspection system a "hazard to public health," noting that the annual number of contaminated food outbreaks in the U.S. today is more than triple what it was just 15 years ago.

Alerting viewers to the fact that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has been so underfunded that it can only inspect about 5% of the nation’s food processing facilities every year, President Obama promised that his new pick for FDA Commissioner, Margaret Hamburg, will change all that — and start by hiring more inspectors. "Dr. Hamburg brings to this vital position not only a reputation of integrity," Obama said, "but a record of achievement in making Americans safer and more secure." There’s absolutely no question about it, Hamburg's résumé is impressive, so it’s not surprising that both public health advocates and food industry groups are praising the pick. According to Obama, the work of Hamburg and her Deputy Commissioner at the FDA, Dr. Joshua Sharfstein, "will be part of a larger effort taken up by a new Food Safety Working Group" that will advise the president "on how we can upgrade our food safety laws for the 21st century; foster coordination throughout government; and ensure that we are not just designing laws that will keep the American people safe, but enforcing them."

Pigs: The Other Downed Animals

The downed animal ban announced by President Obama applies only to cattle, leaving downed pigs, sheep, goats, and other farm animals to suffer the cruelty inherent in dragging, pushing or otherwise coercing large animals onto the kill floor. Pigs are also known to carry transmissible diseases from which humans have died and approximately 100,000 downed pigs go to market each year, yet for the foreseeable future, these animals will continue to suffer cruelty while the pork-eating public remains at risk. And don’t forget that salmonella poisoning kills about 1,500 humans every year, and that approximately 15% of chickens sold in the U.S. are contaminated with salmonella.

People who eat meat must understand that as long as agribusiness corporations insist on treating animals like interchangeable biomachines instead of individual living creatures, meat will be swarming with bacteria from feces and other unsanitary substances that are part and parcel of the assembly-line factory farming system. That is, improvements in animal welfare and food safety are intimately connected — and you can’t have one without the other. So please, urge your legislators and President Obama to expand the downed animal ban so that it protects all farm animal species.

Critical: Tell Gov. Schwarzenegger NO VET CARE TAX!

Animal guardians should not have to pay “luxury tax” on veterinary visits

My fellow Californians: first the bad news, then the other bad news. Our state faces a $41 billion budget deficit over the next 18 months, and to make matters worse, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger propounds paying it off by sticking animal guardians with the bill. How? By taxing veterinary care as a “luxury” item — literally equivalent (in the governor’s proposal) to other discretionary activities he now wants to tax like going to an amusement park, attending a sports event, playing golf, having your furniture repaired, or taking your car to a mechanic.

Schwarzenegger's short-sighted solution to solving California's debt crisis by imposing a “sales tax” of up to 10.5% on vet services (including routine checkups, vaccinations and prescription medications) is offensive enough. However, on top of that — adding linguistic insult to economic injury — he also wants to redefine taking a sick or injured animal companion to the vet as an optional extravagance (as opposed to a personal, family or moral obligation) that should be factored into your entertainment and household maintenance expenses. This regressive “Fido Fine” will surely force many financially-strapped guardians to choose between repairing the car and “fixing” the cat.

Terminator Tax

If anyone deserves a break in this tough economy, it’s animal guardians, who account for more than half the state’s population and spend about $2.7 billion a year on vet care. Unemployment is officially over 7% right now, so many people without jobs must (metaphorically) tighten their pets’ belts along with their own. Meanwhile, veterinary care is already too expensive for many families to afford, and the added tax would leave them even less able to provide for their own adopted animal family members, surely forcing some to surrender their animal companions to shelters for lack of funds.

Animal shelters, underfunded as they already are, would also have to pay more for essential veterinary services, including spay and neuter operations that reduce pet homelessness and euthanasia. Many large municipal shelters already spend several million dollars a year on such expenses — and would have to shell out hundreds of thousands more under Schwarzenegger’s plan. Every extra dollar allocated to veterinary care is a dollar taken away from animals who desperately need food, shelter, and every chance they can get to find loving guardians — meaning that shelters would no longer be able to feed, house, and save as many animals.

Arnold and Animals

In the original (1984) Terminator movie, Arnold (the actor) was a cold, murderous cyborg, but in the blockbuster sequel released seven years later, he played a good Terminator — a bodyguard transported back through time who is programmed to protect the life of a vulnerable boy. Similarly, Schwarzenegger (the governor) has also taken on these dual roles when dealing with animal protection issues — alternately playing the callous politico, then the compassionate leader.

For instance, while (at first) he called the proposal to ban the sale and production of foie gras in California “silly,” in the end he changed his tune and signed the bill into law in 2004. That same year, he tried to repeal a law that requires shelters to provide veterinary care for all animals, document and report on the number of animals they manage, and hold animals for a minimum of six days before euthanizing them — that is, until he suddenly rescinded his suggestion under concerted pressure from animal advocates (and his daughter's entreaties). Then again, Schwarzenegger famously appeared in a PETA anti-milk billboard campaign, and won the group’s “Proggy Award” last year for signing a bill to regulate the chaining of dogs.

Governor Schwarzenegger has shown concern for animals, so how can he not see how wrong and unfair it is to make caring people fork over more money for essential and life-saving services — especially when there are so many animal abusers who should be “paying” for their crimes? And so, I give you my plan for enabling California to resolve the budget shortfall and help animals at the same time: ensure that factory farms and slaughterhouses pay the maximum fines any and every time they violate anti-cruelty, environmental, or labor laws. That deficit would probably be paid down in no time if the government actually enforced existing statutes (any accountants out there want to crunch the numbers?) by cracking down on all the agribusiness producers who ignore state laws.

The California legislature could vote on this tax any day now, which you could be paying as soon as February 1^st if they pass it, so now is the time to act. Please politely urge Governor Schwarzenegger and your state legislators to take the vet care tax out of the budget proposal, and to instead raise funds for California by collecting fines from factory farms that break laws meant to protect animals, people and the planet.

The easiest way to oppose this unjust tax is to send an automatic email to these elected officials through HSUS’s Humane Alert on this issue. But to have the maximum impact, use this contact info to follow up with postal letters, phone calls, faxes, or personal emails:

Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger
State Capitol Building
Sacramento, CA 95814
Phone: 916/445-2841
Fax: 916/445-4633
Email the governor

Find out who your legislators are and get their contact information

Please also let your animal-loving family and friends in California know how they can help.

Obama vs. McCain on Animals & the Environment: Round 2

Senator John McCain - Republican candidate for President of the United States of America

In September, I posted an entry on Senator Barack Obama's position vis-à-vis animals and the environment. This second installment in that two-part series examines Senator John McCain's record on these important issues. Those who've read Round 1 know that I've already personally endorsed Obama/Biden as the ticket most likely to result in positive outcomes for animals and the environment: here is a more comprehensive explanation for that choice.

Animal Issues: A Chequered Record

There have been notable instances in Senator McCain's career when he stood up for animals. For instance, he voted against a $2 million subsidy for the fur industry, co-sponsored the American Horse Slaughter Prevention Act, and supported bills to stop interstate trafficking of birds for cockfighting and the killing of bears harvested for their organs. Even so, his record on animal issues is inconsistent and sometimes nonexistent.

To begin with, McCain has yet to issue any public statements on animal protection issues, according to the Humane Society Legislative Fund (HSLF). He also neglected to fill out the HSLF's presidential questionnaire, which seeks to tabulate the candidates' positions on a variety of animal welfare legislation proposals currently before Congress. In contrast, Senator Obama not only responded to the questionnaire, but pledged support for virtually every pending pro-animal bill.

The HSLF also claims that Senator McCain “has been largely absent on other issues, and has failed to support a large number of priority bills or sign onto animal protection letters that have broad support in the Senate.” When a groundbreaking Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) video investigation brought the issue of downed farm animals into the presidential debates earlier this year, Obama stated that “the mistreatment of downed cows is unacceptable and poses a serious threat to public health,” but McCain remained conspicuously silent. McCain also recently delivered the keynote address at a rally for the US Sportsmen's Alliance, an organization that actively promotes trophy hunting of threatened species and canned hunting of animals in fenced enclosures from which they cannot escape. Online research has not enabled me to determine whether or not McCain himself actually hunts animals: if anyone has a citation with the answer, please post a comment here. However, he goes fishing on the artificial lake on his property (at least for PR purposes).

McCain's choice of Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as his running mate convinced the HSLF to issue their first-ever endorsement of a presidential candidate – for Barack Obama. The HSLF is urging animal advocates to vote Democrat not only because “McCain's positions on animal protection have been lukewarm,” but primarily because “(Palin's) record is so extreme that she has perhaps done more harm to animals than any current governor in the United States.” The organization also asserts that “If Palin is put in a position to succeed McCain, it could mean rolling back decades of progress on animals issues,” an assessment that mirrors what I posted about Palin here in this blog soon after she was nominated.

The Pet Vote: McCain Wins Paws Down

According to an AP-Yahoo! News poll, “pet owners favor McCain over Obama 42 percent to 37 percent, with dog owners particularly in McCain's corner.” And really, given the number of companion animals he and his wife Cindy have, it's no wonder. “There’s no denying John McCain is an animal lover,” writes a dog blogger named Jenna. “With fourteen dogs, six cats, two turtles, three birds, fourteen fish and a ferret, he far surpasses the average number of pets per household.”

Wow, that's a lot of animals! I assume the family has staff who do the majority of caretaking, because the Senator and his wife are obviously very busy people who spend a lot of time on the road (and have at least seven houses around the country). Even so, I sincerely hope that the McCain's truly love and appreciate every one of the animals in their various homes. I also hope that that they adopted their animals rather than purchasing them from breeders, because millions of homeless animals are put to death in shelters every year, but I cannot find the answer to this question online.

Meanwhile, as I mentioned in Round 1, the Obama family doesn't yet have any pets: they plan to adopt a dog (at the behest of their two young daughters) after the election is done. Does this mean McCain likes animals more than Obama does? I have no idea. However, let's remember that it's not the number of animals a person has that really matters, but the attitude he/she has towards them. That is, animal lovers fundamentally respect members of other species as sentient beings capable of thought and deep emotional connection (even though many seem to think dogs somehow differ from, say, cows in this regard). It would be interesting and perhaps enlightening to find out how both McCain and Obama view animals.

Agricultural Subsidies 

According to a May 19, 2008 McCain campaign press release, the Arizona Senator has “vowed to aid small farmers by targeting agricultural tariffs and subsidies doled out to agribusiness”: “If I am elected president,” he told members of National Restaurant Association in Chicago, “I will seek an end to all agricultural tariffs, and to all farm subsidies that are not based on clear need. I will veto any bill containing special-interest favors and corporate welfare in any form.” Regarding “the billions of dollars in subsidies served up every five years to corporate farmers,” McCain said “The original idea was to provide a buffer to small farmers in tough times and to assure a stable supply of food for our country. But nowadays, the small farmers have been forgotten, and instead the Congress sends a steady supply of subsidies to agribusiness.”

So, at least from what they say, it seems that the Republican and Democratic candidates have similar views on agricultural subsidies, with Obama actually taking a somewhat more moderate stance on the Farm Bill (which McCain said he would have vetoed) that has played well in critical rural swing states like Iowa, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Missouri, Indiana and Ohio. Both McCain and Obama have posted their plans to help family farmers on their websites, but Obama’s is by far the more in-depth (with McCain’s limited to just two paragraphs). The most notable difference between them on farming issues is that Obama strongly supports government investment in the development of renewable plant-based alternative fuels like ethanol, whereas McCain has set his shoulder squarely against this new industry (and has therefore been accused of shilling for Big Oil).

Ultimately, I don't know whether McCain or Obama would better serve the cause of animals on the issue of agricultural subsidization (though I do think we need to develop ethanol to some extent as a fuel source). I encourage readers who have additional insights to post their comments on this blog.

Environment

On the McCain website one can find the candidate’s statements on environmental stewardship and climate change. But based on the many discrepancies between his statements and fact throughout his political career and presidential campaign (more on that below), I don’t believe McCain can be taken at his word on anything. This impression is confirmed by many others who have already done the work of digging more deeply beneath the surface of McCain’s environmental resumé.

For instance, Green Piece Blog posted a very thorough and wide-ranging critique entitled “McCain vs. McCain on the Environment” that compares and contrasts the Senator’s past record on conservation with his positions as a presidential candidate. Their conclusion: “McCain has abandoned his past moderate environmental views and adopted the much less environmentally friendly platform of his party.” It seems pretty clear from this well-documented analysis that a McCain Administration would further despoil the planet and endanger those trying to live on it.

“The Reality-Based Community”

“…guys like you are in what we call the 'reality-based community.' ... But that's not the way the world really works now. We're an empire of sorts, and when we act, we create our own reality. ... We're history's actors, who are willing to do what's needed, and you can study what we do.”

- Anonymous Bush aide to journalist Ron Suskind in 2002

I provide this quote, as a proud citizen of the “reality-based community” (hello fellow residents!), because John McCain has been lying so much lately (and so knowingly, so repeatedly) that I find it hard to believe anything he says at all. Seriously, his libelous attack ads (orchestrated by Karl Rove’s protégé), along with the insulting doublespeak spouted by both he and Palin, transcend shamelessness and border on the treasonous. Because our country faces pressing problems (economic collapse, rising unemployment, mortgage foreclosures, the war, oil dependence, global warming, etc.) that threaten the nation’s very foundations, I submit that strategically reviving the Culture Wars to deliberately distract voters from the real issues is a traitorous betrayal of the American people, as well as America herself.

To us Americans living in the real world—where facts, knowledge and judgment actually mean something—McCain’s candidacy is looking sad: watching, listening to or reading about him is severely depressing. Having to see his face and hear his delusional crap for the next four years would drive me mad. Every night I'd have to go to bed wondering, what crazy catastrophe will I read about in tomorrow's news? And will the nightmare of President Palin actually come to life?

Now, that’s “only” my opinion, but it’s an informed opinion based on some amount of research, deliberation and soul-searching. I emphasize this because I had stated in Round 1 of this series my sincere intention to objectively evaluate the candidates. I firmly believe that, along with a review of McCain's record, incorporating some analysis of his willfully deceptive campaign tactics is absolutely essential to understanding the potentially devastating implications of a McCain presidency.

In Conclusion

Anyway, there's my two cents on the election. I hope these posts leave readers better informed than they were before about what is at stake for animals and the environment, as well as our country and the world. Choosing the next leader of our nation is a complex and multi-faceted decision, and I respect that many folks consider it a very personal matter. While I do not condone single-issue voting, I hope readers will carefully weigh these important facts when they enter polling booths in November, and ensure that family and friends know the difference between McCain and Obama on animals, the environment and other crucial issues before they cast their ballots.