Research Activity

For human life: "Factory farm production is intensifying worldwide, and rates of new infectious diseases are rising. Of particular concern is the rapid rise of antibiotic-resistant microbes, an inevitable consequence of the widespread use of antibiotics as feed additives in industrial livestock operations...antibiotic resistance is a clear and present danger, already killing thousands of people in the United States each year" (Sayre 77).
This quote says that antibiotic resistance is rising with the use of antibiotics as feed additives in CAFOs. This is useful in my essay because it shows factory farms wasting so many useful vaccines to keep animals from dying because of the conditions they are subjected to, and how the antibiotics make them unusual.

For animal life: "...Factory farms are terrific incubators for disease. The stress of factory farm conditions weakens animals' immune systems; ammonia from accumulated waste burns lungs and makes them more susceptible to infection; the lack of sunlight and fresh air--as well as the genetic uniformity of industrial farm animal populations--facilitates the spread of pathogens" (Sayre 78).
Factory farms are a perfect place for diseases to run rampant amongst living creatures- The stress of overcrowding and the dirty conditions leaves animals vulnerable to get diseases. This quote is good because it provides an example as to why factory farms are bad for animals.

For environment: "Confined livestock operations in the United States produce three times as much waste each year as our country's entire human population--and yet all that manure is much more loosely regulated and handled than human waste. Antibiotic-resistant microbes, as well as the antibiotics themselves, are now widely present as environmental contaminants, with unknown consequences for everything from soil microorganisms to people" (Sayre 79-80).

For government apathy towards regulations: "The pending approval of an antibiotic called cefquinome to treat respiratory diseases in cattle offered a recent test case. Cefquinome is similar to cefepime, a last-resort antibiotic used to treat serious infections in people.The FDA's Veterinary Medicine Advisory Committee, along with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the American Medical Association, recommended against approval, warning that using cefquinome for animals would almost certainly render cefepime less effective for humans. But the FDA has apparently caved to industry pressure, claiming it lacks the authority to deny the drug companies' request" (Sayre 82).

Sayre, Laura. "The Hidden Link Between Factory Farms and Human Illness". Mother Earth News Feb./Mar. 2009: p76-83, 8p. Print.

Blog Five: The CAFO System Thesis Statement

The CAFO system has no regard for human and animal life; it doesn’t care for the safety and rights of the living creatures involved in the process of “making” food. The CAFO system barely holds a distinction between humans and the animals in these factory farms- where workers are held in a slightly more “respectable”, for a lack of a better term, position due to their ability to slaughter the animals. Although it is not even that notable, and as one worker confessed to Robert Kenner the director of the movie “Food INC.”, “They have the same mentality towards workers as they do towards the hogs… You know, the hog, they don't really have to worry about their comfort because they're temporary. They're gonna be killed. And they have the same viewpoint to the worker. You're not worried about the longevity of the worker because, to them everything has an end.” It wouldn’t come as a surprise to hear that this was how all workers in such an environment felt, and this is the fault of supervisors responsible for their safety. Workers are dispensable because the employees are usually illegal immigrants and/or de-skilled, meaning they are trained to do only one task therefore can be replaced quite easily. Supervisors have no regard for the safety and rights of living creatures. This factory system in turn has consequences that affect the health of our life. Factory farms condone the behavior of many humans to abuse animals' right to a painless death, and these poor creatures are subjected to abuses from their birth to death. Animals are taken for granted, they are just protein products and can therefore be starved and beaten because the justification is that they exist solely for our consumption. People who have to work under these conditions are often desensitized to the working conditions, and abuse these animals because they feel no remorse since they are treated just as these animals are. The ecosystem is constantly affected by our decisions and it is being destroyed by the people that provide us with meat. All the animals in factory farms, plus the workers that refuse to take care of animals leads to a very polluted environment. This is because animal wastes are not disposed of or efficiently gotten rid of. We choose to be a nation that promotes the abuse of animals and humans, as well as our ecosystem without even knowing it. Our naivety had lead us to a world where eating meat has turned us into uncaring and basically barbaric human beings.