The July 9 “Health Watch” article (“More money for food safety doesn’t mean that cooks can relax,” Good Eating) was interesting but missed the point.
The primary reason people become infected with food-borne illnesses is not because inspections and food-handling practices are inadequate, but because the food itself, primarily meat, is infected from the start by grossly poor hygiene and husbandry practices.
The severe crowding, filth and stress to which animals in factory-style megafarms are subjected causes most of them to become ill with infections, respiratory diseases, parasites and even cancerous growths before they are sent to slaughter. Because the majority of animals arriving at slaughterhouses are sick (but accepted anyway), it is nearly impossible to stop the passage of illness-causing pathogens on to consumers.
When manure from these unhealthy animals is spread on farmland, the infectious organisms may contaminate vegetables. Our system of “sick farming” thus puts everyone–even those who wisely avoid eating animal products–at risk for food poisoning.
Waiting until “food” animals are killed to begin tackling the problem of food-borne pathogens is absurd. At the very least, the U.S. government should mandate that husbandry practices that promote the development and spread of illness among farm animals be banned. Not only would clean and humane animal-rearing systems virtually eliminate outbreaks of pathogenic disease, they would also virtually eliminate the need to dose farm animals with 50 percent of this country’s total output of antibiotics and other pharmaceuticals.
The passing on of antibiotic residues and antibiotic-resistant bacteria from animals to humans is a rarely acknowledged crisis with severe implications. Organics-based “zero tolerance” for food-borne illness programs work in several northern European countries, but they are resisted here.
