maria-ashot’s Recent Comments

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  Also please read this:

  http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27521859/

  "Cold and dispassionate" enough for you?

  The corporate pig farmers have no idea their business models come with potential public health threats? Global ones?

  And, of course, Mexico's environmental protection standards are at least as high as our EPA's, right?

  That's why Smithfield Foods put its CAFOs in Mexico, isn't it: because the EP standards exceed those operating on US soil, right?

  How dare anyone go out there and suggest to a working parent like me that meats produced under such conditions ought to be purchased for our meals? And then suggest that disagreeing makes us unhinged on some level?

  It's my money: I will spend it where I see fit. I buy bottled water; I support sustainable & intelligent farming; I buy meat raised by professionals who know how to treat an animal they hope to offer for sale to me and my peers.

  End of story, Mr. Lawrence. Smithfield Foods has a PR problem, and they are taking precisely the wrong approach to deal with it. Instead, they should be learning from the past sound decisions of companies such as Johnson & Johnson during the Tylenol scare.

  J&J faced up to the public's concerns, even though very few people were actually harmed, and after a product recall instituted new policies and practices. They saved the brand and the reputation of the US health care industry (for a time), and were abe to continue to export successfully.

  My message to American decisionmakers, bottom line, is very simple: study the past, and learn from it.

  Don't just tell me, as DL does above: "Nasty smells are harmless as proven when dumping feces into the Thames worsened cholera instead of reducing it." That is not even a logical statement.

  Noxious smells -- and CAFOs are beyond noxious, as anyone knows who ever drove down I-5 past "elite" Harris Ranch feedlots near Coalinga, since relocated -- are indicators of the presence of substances associated with disease, toxicity and decomposition. Not always harmful, but, in great concentrations, not harmless by any means.

  It took human beings far too long to discover the link between hygiene and health. Ought we to reconsider that vital discovery?

  Think clearly. Think carefully. Should your food come from clean facilities and healthy animals?

  Or may it come just as "safely" from filthy facilities and diseased animals -- or animals suffering extreme stress under unnatural, biologically counterintuitive and historically untested conditions of prolonged confinement in huge concentrations comparable to overcrowded prison camps for animals, with very little mobility and no fresh air?

  How hard is it, really?

  On Jumping to conclusions in health matters may have adverse side effects posted 6 months, 4 weeks ago 15 Responses

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  Please read this:

  http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2008/jun/22/foodanddrink.food

  The number of people alarmed by how America produces, markets & consumes meat is high, reflecting diverse backgrounds and experience. The concerns raised are legitimate and will not simply go away as a matter of convenience for American business interests.

  Note that, unlike many critics of the American Way of Food, I do not advocate either veganism or vegetarianism, as many other activists do.

  I am only suggesting that reverting to sounder practices rooted in age-old understanding of how humans best interact with animals intended to be eaten by other humans, and allowing herds to shrink, prices to go up, diets to change, and farms to use cleaner methods -- and not pool feces in lagoon, not add secondary lines of revenue-building via methane-harvesting and bioreactor entrepreneurship -- will actually allow the industry to survive.

  Ostrich acts will not. Take your pick. And please, Mr. Lawrence, stop pretending we can be dispassionate about stuff that goes into makes up our body within moments of crossing our lips. This planet is not a graveyard yet, full of corpses; we are not zombies, no matter how aggressively shiny ads are pitched at us, or however many additives are meant to slow down our mental and metabolic processes.

  You really think scholarship, careers, money, survival, health are subjects that "cold, dispassionate" catatonia helps advance?

   

   

  On Jumping to conclusions in health matters may have adverse side effects posted 6 months, 4 weeks ago 15 Responses

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  Do you consider Jeremy Rifkin "hysterical," Mr. Lawrence? Or Michael Pollan, author of The Omnivore's Dilemma? Or Ralph Nader? Or Jerry Brown? Or Ross Perot, who objected to the exportation of American business operations to countries that lack US regulatory standards, where safety is harder to enforce? And what about Al Gore? Or Leonardo Di Caprio, who made The Eleventh Hour? Or Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.? Or John Edwards? Are they all "hysterics" because they have all pointed out that American business has not been doing enough to live up to its claims of world supremacy and the right to "lead on climate change," as Hillary Clinton recently reiterated on behalf of the Administration of President Obama?

  What about such gripping investigations of egregious industrial malfeasance as have become classics of consciousness-raising, works such as A Civil Action and Erin Brockovich, all meticulously researched and based on actual events, actual cases? Are these also the works of "hysterical" Americans? Of course not. They are the works of serious, informed human beings of high intelligence and great ethical commitment, with serious credentials and global reach.

  I am just a person you know nothing about, with a Christian name it is easy to categorize as situating me south of the border. I am proud to have been born in Argentina, where ranchers and farmers still know how to work with animals; and I am also proud to be an American -- a particular thriving breed of American, called an American-with-a-conscience.

  All you can do to dismiss my arguments is to label me "hysterical": an all-too-common, though now generally discredited way of abusing a female voice (as you of course now the very epithet hysterical derives from the old Greek word for womb, and is the conventional way to slur a female for getting uppity and not keeping her place in this nice male-run world that is now at risk).

  Only when it comes to looking after the sick, it is generally the women who wind up having to clean up the messes of the power elites.

  You can call me "hysterical," Mr. Lawrence, and I can call you a "male supremacist" and I think that just about leaves us square. It does not make an iota of difference in the problem, and it does not lead to a single cleaner pigsty, unfortunately.

  So let's just get away from all the ridiculous name-calling, and be sensible here. Especially since you know absolutely nothing -- zero -- about who I am, my education, my credentials in this field, my record as an activist.

  Let's just look at the situation from the most basic logic.

  CAFOs confine animals. Not so that there is no oxygen, but pretty thoroghly. When methane is to be extracted -- harvested -- from their natural digestive processes, there is a tendency to make the confinement pretty close, pretty thorough. That makes the operations "cost-effective." This aspect of CAFOs has been well-described by Pollan, by Rifkin; it has been commented on extensively by people like Nader and even Edwards. These are serious people with credentials, whether you like their politics or not.

  As all the news reports have indicated and no one denies, Smithfield Foods is committed to metane-harvesting, and its pigs are kept in closed quarters with minimal ventilation. The stench is so severe (and the sight must be so revolting) that Granjas Carroll and Smithfield Foods have not yet allowed any reporters to visit their Vera Cruz facility. I have yet to read any reports from any WHO officials or other international teams allowed to inspect the facilities on the inside.

  Smithfield Foods has made public statements via the media asserting vociferously that their "pork is safe to eat when cooked properly." The US government, our President, and a variety of world bodies including WHO and the UN have come forward with strong statements disassociating pork products from the flu scare (or trying to), to make sure the industry is not in any way hurt.

  Smithfield Foods has made large donations of meat to food pantries serving struggling Americans, and this has also been in the news. It appears commendable. And I would like to thank them and congratulate them for their philanthropy if they can satisfy me that methane-cured pork is actually healthy and safe to eat!

  Because, excuse me, if herds of as many as 10 000 or more pigs are kept in confined facilities breathing an atmosphere that is highly saturated with methane gas, that would mean they are essentially being "methane-smoked" on the hoof, prior to slaughter and sale as food.

  We know that when a living creature consumes a lot of alcohol, or nicotine, eventually their bodily tissue is affected by the presence of these substances in high concentrations in their system over a long period of time.

  We know that when we smoke ham or bacon or any meat, we expose it to high concentrations of fumes to achieve a certain flavor, and other effects of preserving the safety of the meat for consumption (at least according to traditional methods; now, sometimes, it is simply the additive called "smoked flavor" that is introduced, along with chemical preservatives).

  How do we know if eating pork meat from animals contained in enclosed shelters with only limited circulation, and subjected to intense methane fumes for their entire lifetime, is actually completely safe?

  Can you prove it?

  Don't you think that when the governments of China or Russia ban US meat products in the light of these recent events, it is under the advice of their own scientists who know about these operations, keep up with events, have even better resources available to them in their labs than we with our humble little laptops and notebooks and the Internet?

  You are attempting to discredit my questioning and my passion about this subject, because it actually does effectively raise the alarm. As intended. And I am not alone in this: there is a whole army of people like me out there, on other websites, in other countries, working in every language written on earth, to insist that our food is safe, our farming practices sound, and corporate bodies start living up to their advertising messages -- to their fundamental duties as businessmen and human beings.

  Selling food that is not in fact completely sound; or has been produced in remote corners of the world, under conditions where inspections are limited, laws nonexistent or unenforceable, workers divided from the ultimate consumer by a language barrier as well as geography and social barriers; or is produced under increasing economic pressure -- compounded by a sudden flare-up of mortality and infection in an area where locals have already raised the alarm about feeling sickened from a food-production facility -- can be resonably expected to invite intense scrutiny.

  That is why I wrote that people who are not prepared to take on the intense and specific requirements imposed by animal husbandry as a discipline, and by commercial food production on a large scale, should simply get out of the business and pick a different product to work on.

  I am the mother of three young people, and a Californian since 1965. I am concerned about the quality of the food and consumables I spend my hard-earned money on. I am entitled to feel passionate about my health, my husband's health, my children's health, their friends' health. I am entitled to seek and demand answers from the people who make the food I pay for, just as I am entitled to seek & demand answers from anyone I give money to for a car, for health care, for news reports.

  And I am entitled to complain if answers are not forthcoming.

  Not to mention that I am protected by free speech and consumer protection guarantees, at which America, thank God and her people, still excels.

  When Firestone made defective tires and people died, remedies were found via courts. But it started with complaints and passionate letters. Do you consider those hysteria? When cars have defects that threaten lives, and people protest and call for investigations, is that "hysteria?" When Vioxx was doing more harm than good, was that "hysteria" when people complained and wrote denunciations of the pharmaceutical companies?

  Or is it only "hysteria" when it is a woman's voice and a woman signing the letter, Mr. Lawrence?

  My mother died of a very rare form of myelosarcoma that is specifically associated with dioxin poisoning. And it turned out that one of my residences in the last years of her life was built in a formerly industrialized zone, rezoned for residential development, where it was later revealed there was a lot of dioxin in the soil.

  Was I serving my mother tea brewed from dioxin-infused tap water?

  Rest assured I never wrote, complained, sued or -- heaven forfend! -- got "hysterical" over something as "banal" as my mother dying of cancer at the ripe age of 66, leaving her offspring in great financial distress, or bereaved and impeded in certain ways! What's the point of getting "hysterical" over such ridiculous commonplace events as that?

  And why do people get "hysterical" when they lose their money or property, Mr. Lawrence, or even some business, some clients? After all, it is not as if they are losing their health! And you clearly believe that health losses are also nothing to get "hysterical" over.

  When I found out about the dioxin under my house and in the neighborhood, I moved -- and switched to bottled water. Now, having found out that Smithfield Foods sells pork that has been stewed in methane while still alive and standing around in a CAFO, I will probably switch away from buying US-owned meat.

  I only buy for one family, Mr. Lawrence: what's the worry? What's the most I have spent on Smithfield Foods meats in the past five years? Three thousand US dollars? Five thousand?

  But let me tell you, before I let you off the hook here in your efforts to exonerate Smithfield Foods and Granjas Carroll (and by implication corporate US-style farming ideology, even though none-of-the-above have even been investigated in this matter by legal authorities, so why all the effort to pre-empt any investigation if the business is 100% safe & sound?): animals that are to be raised for human consumption have never been kept in confinement over their entire lifetime before, without there being adverse health consequences for them themselves, and for those of us further up the food chain.

  Animals, just like humans, require both some fresh air and some exercise to thrive. In addition to adequate shelter, clean drinking water, and decent food that does not contain ground excrement or the bone meal of animals that might themselves have been sick.

  Unfortunately, industrial feed in the US is notorious for including the ground up remains of slaughterhouses' leftovers. This fact has been widely documented; it is neither a secret, nor a mystery, not a "hysterical" allegation from a "hysterical" over-wrought woman. It is a simple fact that has been filmed and broadcast repeatedly.

  And it is simply the rather shocking truth of the matter about commercial meat production practices in the US.

  Having had the great pleasure and educational benefit recently of spending many months in the UK and many months in France, shopping like the average parent from one of these countries, I have been struck by how much better their food tastes, and also by how much healthier and more flavorful the meats are.

  I have already lived and worked in Germany, Italy, Spain and even Poland, and have long known that their meats are also of higher grade than US meats.

  Yes, European meats are pricier than American meats. People on limited budgets eat less of them, consume smaller portions generally, and eat more varied diets than the average American. But they also have better health outcomes, and live longer (most notably in Japan, France and Italy).

  France has some of the most stringent rules about how food is produced, and especially how animals are managed.

  They have the greatest life expectancy and the least heart disease of any country except Japan.

  The UK, when its meat supply was at risk from inadequate ground feed used on farms, quickly investigated and took drastic measures to protect the public. They changed their approach; they accepted the cost of change; they now have a safe meat supply that is both delicious and reasonably affordable. I can buy British or Irish or NZ beef (or lamb) at the Tesco, and it takes exactly like the Argentinian or Uruguayan organic beef that is also available.

  In the US, on the other hand, we get frequent meat recalls involving millions of portions at a time. Why?

  We open a package of fresh mass-produced US-corporate meat and it smells a little... strange. Why? We prepare it, and its texture an consistency are different. Why?

  Is it "hysterical" to ask?

  Is it "hysterical" to desire the same quality of meat, and the same standard of food safety, for my fellow Americans, that I seek out -- on a very modest budget -- for my own three children and husband, for my own self, in other countries? Where such standards are commonly available, enforced, and expected as a matter of entitlement by the local populations?

  All I want, Mr. Lawrence is honest answers, and lab test results, and CAFOs open to public scrutiny.

  Why is that too much to ask, and almost a "slander" to ask for?

   

   

   

   

   

  
  

  
  

  
  

  
  

  
  

  
  

   

  On Jumping to conclusions in health matters may have adverse side effects posted 6 months, 4 weeks ago 15 Responses

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  Yes and no, Mr. Lawrence. There are hair-splitters doing a little dance to get people to stop applying any kind of public pressure on Smithfield Foods and other meat producers that might cause conservative farmers from taking a good hard look at their entire industry, at what they are doing to themselves, the animals in the care, their neighbours and ultimately the entire planet we are all stuck together on. Such hair-splitters are simply deliberately trying to get in the way of the general public discovering the basic truth of this story: that corporate farming, with an obsessive preoccupation on profit margins, and an absolutely irrational attempt to view animals -- living organisms -- as inanimate widgets instead of complex biological microsystems, is having a seriously deleterious effect not merely on regional ecosystems "somewhere not-in-my-backyard" but on global health now; and that failures to observe eternally applicable ancient fundamental laws about how household animals are to be safely treated leads to diseases that can, in fact, threaten all of us, on a moment's notice, with a pandemic.

  Even a deadly one. Even one that could reduce the global population significantly (probably a good thing from the planetary perspective) and right quickly, before we could properly mount an effective response.

  Yes, in this case, thankfully we can say: it seems we have been spared that ultimate scenario. We are getting a useful dress rehearsal instead. And one good reason may well be the dramatic response by epidemiologists, scientists, concerned parents (also a useful demographic, by the way) and some media people.

  And a handful of politicians with guts and brains.

  But are we in fact "fear-mongering" and "smearing" a pig-feces farm for dispersing viruses, disease and pollution?

  No, Mr. Lawrence, we are not. Your article makes no mention of Granjas Carroll's interest in methane collection for power generation.

  It is all over their business profile, however. Smithfield Foods may in fact, in an effort to be green, have fallen for another crazy idea: that consciously increasing methane concentrations by overproducing methane and then converting it into electricity is a wonderful, even "green" business model. It is not: methane is extremely harmful to human lungs.

  The methane-harvesting idea has contributed to the fact that air quality is extremely poor in the target area we have homed in on, including you, Mr. Lawrence.

  Everyone is dissecting virus strains, but no one is reporting on such basic facts as the air quality in the Vera Cruz area, the water quality in the areas around CAFOs in Mexico specifically. No one is looking very closely at all at the source of the initial complaint by the local people. Whereas they really ought to be: a full, thorough investigation is in order.

  You can make your argument, Mr Lawrence, that we have been "smearing" pristine Smithfield Farms operations once we have the data published on composition of the air & water in the areas where there has evidently been a cluster of deaths under unclear conditions.

  BBC has also reported from Mexican doctors that there were instructions to specifically tailor death certificates & morbidity reports to provide "desirable" or "innocuous" causes of death that would not hurt Mexico or perhaps even the corporate interests. Such acts of falsification are of course highly problematic to say the least from a health & safety standpoint, not to mention a journalist's interest in getting the full story.

  In a word, the numbers we are being given are known to be inaccurate; because they are inaccurate, they raise questions. Get the accurate numbers out there then, using all forensic & investigative tools, and give us numbers and projections that have some credibility. For every officially ascertained case of illness, there are how many likely out there in the community? 1000? 10 000? 100 000? Sickened people are not all reporting, but deaths are much harder to hide. So how does the chart for deaths in Mexico since 2009 began compare to previous years and regional patterns? How sure are we of causes of these deaths? If not the swine flu, then what caused the excess deaths?

  As one of many environmental activists busy now for over 30 years raising the level of awareness of the damage uncontrolled, unrestreained, unselfcritical, wasteful human activity does to the planet that contains our collective future as a human race, a global society and even as a Civilisation, I will not allow the drumbeat of concern to be dampened down out of excessive preoccupation with the sensitive reputation of meat, whether it originates in the US, Argentina (where I was born and the best practices in cattle-ranching and farming remain in effect), China, or Europe. It is up to the people who go into the business of producing and distributing meat products to make sure they are the best, cleanest, safest -- and only then the most profitable.

  Americans have always had industry leaders. An example is the Apple company. In the field they have chosen, they are the best -- and they prove American firms still have it to be the best.

  But other American companies, automakers, fast food behemoths such as McD now on record as praising Smithfield, or mega-meat manufacturers such as Smithfield in this case, have chosen to take the easy route, producing basically lower-quality products wrapped in the US flag, with fancy packaging and big media campaigns used to keep people addicted to something that is basically not good enough to remain competitive.

  Survival of the fittest would apply here, Mr. Lawrence, as it does elsewhere.

  Making American journalists feel guilty (as some are trying to) for joining in with foreign media people who are noticing US food products are not nearly as good as those from Europe, and obviously now not as safe, is not smart. Eventually we have to face the music, as the auto industry has had to.

  And with basic foods, the opportunity to harm is even greater than with autos.

  If a person or business cannot comprehend Rule One of Animal Husbandry: No animal carrying a disease is ever to be allowed to be used for human consumption," -- well, they need to go into another industry.

  Because, since the dawn of civilisation, this basic principle has been well understood by all humans. And it was only in 20th century that Americans, armed with exceptionalism and pharmaceuticals, believed they could change the rules.

  You can't. Animals for purposes of human consumption need to be raised in small enough herds to be carefully managed by enough qualified persons with education in the discipline, and vets, that any animal carrying a disease (even a 'mere' animal disease, and even without showing symptoms), has to be culled or isolated from other creatures until it recovers. But above all it is never to be allowed to enter the human food supply.

  EVER. That was the understanding of our ancestor farmers, and that was how the human race survived long enough to get to this huge population. Because they followed this overriding principles. Sick animals may be good enough to treat and shelter and love as pets for their natural life, BUT YOU NEVER ARE TO EAT THEM. Only the flesh of animals who have been shown to be 100% in perfect health may be consumed.

  Those are the rules for land-based farming and animal husbandry. They never changed.

  Corporate farming of animals consciously attempts to get around this basic principle, the most fundamental one of all. The result is simply an obscenity, a disaster waiting to happen. Animals are not bricks or bits of plastic: it really is that simple! There are rules of physics, and there are rules of microbiology, and there are rules of animal husbandry, and there are rules of public health. Microorganisms can kill you. The intersection of all the rules is the safe zone wherein you may operate. That is how it works in this Universe, and if Smithfield Foods or any other meat-producer wants different rules they should find themselves a different Universe.

  Meat will become expensive, you will wail, if we do things according to your rules! Of course, Mr Lawrence. Meat should be more expensive, and consumed more rarely, and it MUST be 100% safe, non-toxic, non-polluting.

  Yes, fast food businesses shall have to dramatically alter their business model, because, obviously Cheap Meats Kill. And so meat has to be grown as it is in Argentina, or in Japan on some elite beef farms, or in France  where people still fight for the right of farmers to do the job the proper way instead of the American-inspired way: meat for human consumption has to cost a whole lot more than it does. And a lot less of it needs to be in our bellies.

  That would be the healthy and intelligent, and by the way, earth-friendly, thing to do. Please do not help those who will stop at nothing to bury the plain facts -- the age-old truths known to our illiterate ancestors who farmed! -- in support of an unsustainable American laissez-faire economic theory that has brought the entire world to a devastating crisis, now revealing itself to be not just a problem with the US way of banking, but also with the US way of farming.

  We have known for some time there are problems with the US way of news reporting, and with the US way of educating, and with the US way of providing health care... Please let those Americans who are in fact still committed to being part of the Solution continue to look truthfully at the roots of the Problem. Because if we don't in fact change profoundly (and it seems unlikely the current White House actually welcomes profound change, rather than mere cosmetic change), we will all perish. And not in some distant future, but in fact quite soon.

  Intelligence has to remain consistent with logic, and insist on getting the optimal outcome, not another stop-gap measure that simply accepts annual, seasonal, mutating, worrisome, expensive influenza epidemics worldwide as the necessary byrpoduct of "the American Way of Doing Things."

  If we can clean up our farms, shall we have less disease? Wouldn't it be fascinating if the answer turned out to be yes?

   

   

   

   

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  On Jumping to conclusions in health matters may have adverse side effects posted 7 months ago 15 Responses