Sep 22, 2016

Man uses drones to expose one of America's "biggest secrets" - Factory Farming. Denmark spreading MRSA around the world - and the world does not care (4,8M Youtube Views - Think again, before you put pig on your plate!!. Most of the millions of pigs, Denmark exports each year, carries on the multi-resistant bacteria MRSA. This means that Danish agriculture have helped to spread the disease in other countries. But there is virtually no monitoring of how the pig-MRSA spreads - Bon Appétit -)






Update: BREAKING NEWS - Sept 22, 2016 - Denmark spreading MRSA around the world - and the world does not care - Denmark is Europe's largest exporter of live pigs - and thus 'logically' the largest exporter of MRSA, since many Danish pigs are infected with the antibiotic-resistant bacteria. Most of the millions of pigs, Denmark exports each year, carries on the multi-resistant bacteria MRSA. This means that Danish agriculture have helped to spread the disease in other countries. But there is virtually no monitoring of how the pig-MRSA spreads


Update: May 4, 2014 - Danish pigs spread hospital bacteria... Nine out of ten pigs in Danish slaughterhouses are infected with bacteria that cannot be knocked down with penicillin. Erik Larsen fights the bacteria by changing boots, washing his hands and using high-pressure flushing

UPDATE! -Apr 26, 2016 - 70 farmers will breed pig without antibiotics to the US market....

Blogger: WHEN it comes to pigs, Denmark reigns supreme. This little country of just 5.4m humans raises 39m of them a year, when you count the stillborn piglets, making it the world's biggest exporter of pork. But many pigs die in the Danish stables - actually die more than every fifth piglet and every fourth sow (25,000 destroyed pigs per day). This means that annually raised about 29 million pigs/out of a total of 140 million farm animals in Denmark. About 10 million of these pigs are sent live abroad, mainly to Germany and Poland.  While pigs mean profits for some, they cause headaches for others. For many, many years, the danish powerful farm lobby is under siege from an unusual coalition of environmentalists, animal-welfare people and the tourism industry....We also know that each Danish cow gets more in agricultural support per. day than many poor people have to live for. And now, we know also that Danish pig breeders obviously take pride in being animal abusers....

Did you know that:

  • Smell/fumes/toxic waste from pork slurry tanks, makes the surrounding neighbour houses unsellable, asthmatic symptoms among children, upper respiratory sumptions, affecting peoples blood pressure etc. 
  • HUGE amount genetically modified (GM) crops, including crops treated with glyphosate are served to cows and pigs in Denmark (above picture)
  • Farmers routine tail docking MUST be discontinued 
  • Baby pigs are taken from their mother into barren metal cells/pens and metal floor...
  • Most pigs have no permanent access to large amounts of rooting or access to nature throughout their cycle
  • Ear Infections, stress, puncture wounds, muscle degeneration, bids, ulcer, broken legs etc. are very common problems
  • HUGE consumption of antibiotics and other pharmaceutical products / growth promoters are used
  • Most of the pigs that die after birth, are probably exposed to significant suffering in the form of either pain, hunger, fear or stress lasting from a few minutes up to half a day..  
  • From January 1, 2012 EU-legislation outlaws fixation on gestating sows. This has raised the question whether or not a further Danish legislation should ban fixation of lactating sows. “Disastrous for Danish pig farmers” says Danish Agriculture and Food.
  • A ban on AGPs in Denmark has not had the intended benefit of reducing antibiotic resistance patterns in humans; it has had the unintended consequence of increasing animal suffering, pain and death.....
    Each year, the Danish government publishes a report on antibiotic use and resistance patterns, as illustrated in the chart above. Ultimately, comparison of resistance patterns from the Danish data in humans and animals provide no clear correlations. (Antibiotic Use in Denmark, 1990-2009)
     ****************************************

    Phillip Schneider, Staff
    Waking Times

    Factory farming is quite possibly the most horrific and destructive practice we humans engage in today. It sacrifices billions of lives each year and serves to pollute, not protect, the environment of our planet. According to the animal rights group, Last Chance for Animals, “97% of the 10 billion animals tortured and killed each year are [factory] farm animals.” So why is it that when most people look at their plates they don’t see the real story behind what they’re eating?

    Pollution and Environmental Damage

    Let’s take a look at a video published by Factory Farm Drones about a man who infiltrated factory farm territory with a surveillance drone. In the video, you see a glimpse of how devastating factory farming can be on the environment as well as on neighboring communities who happen to be down-wind of one of these facilities.




    “The waste falls through the floors [and] it’s flushed out into an open-pit like a cess pool. It’s easy for a big hog operation to have as much waste as a medium-sized city. Of course the pit will fill up so it has to be emptied and they’re emptied by spraying the liquid waste…and that can drift down-wind into the neighboring communities.” says Steve Wing, PhD, Associate professor of Epidomology at the Gillings School of Public Health at the University of North Carolina.
    The city of Salem, Oregon had a 2009 population of approximately 156,690 people (that’s about a fourth of the population of Portland Oregon, Denver Colorado or Seattle) and produced 90,817.68 tonnes of waste, all things included. In North Carolina alone, there are over 2000 of these factories, and tens of thousands of tons of waste being sprayed into the air each year.
    Steve Wing also states that low-income and colored people are the ones who often fall victim to this unsightly practice. A local who was interviewed for the video claimed that their family would close all the doors and windows whenever the spray came near their home and that they experienced headaches and gagging. Steve also claims that there are numerous studies linking these factories to asthma, especially in children.


    Animal Welfare

    These are not happy animals. Like any industry, factory farming is about maximizing profits while cutting costs. Unfortunately this equation doesn’t include the welfare of the animals involved. Most are trapped in small cages in which they can barely move, if at all. In fact, each full-grown chicken in a factory farm has only six-tenths of a square foot of space. The chickens will often become aggressive and peck or even eat each other. This has led to an extremely painful practice called de-beaking, which are literally cut off near the time of birth. That is, the chicks that aren’t ground up alive in “chick shredding”.
    Unfortunately, other factory farmed animals do not have it any easier than chicks and chickens. According to the Independent about 88 percent of pigs had all or part of their tails cut off from a practice called “tail docking”. This is done as as result of overcrowding, where just like chickens, hogs will become aggressive and bite each others tails. In other words, the reason is “less tail injuries”, but we’re talking about cutting off a body part. It’s hard to imagine a worse injury than that.

    Antibiotics and Public Health

    Factory farmed animals are typically given too many antibiotics resulting in the animals developing immunity to the antibiotics, and helping to push us closer to the end of the antibiotic era. However, these antibiotics are not only used on the animals to treat infections, but also to promote unnatural growth in the animals. This is a problem because these antibiotic-resistant bacteria can spread from animals to humans via food and contaminated waste in the environment. The result is a bacteria that takes ever-increasing amounts of antibiotics to kill. Many people can not handle these high doses of antibiotics, especially children, the elderly, pregnant women and people with current ailments.

    Read more articles from Phillip Schneider.

     

    About the Author
    Phillip Schneider is a student and a contributing author to Waking Times.
    Sources:
    http://www.lcanimal.org/index.php/campaigns/other-issues/factory-farming
    https://www.facebook.com/Upworthy/videos/p.1039715909402600/1039715909402600/?type=2&theater
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_cities_by_population
    http://www.cityofsalem.net/Residents/Sustainable-Salem/Documents/community%20energy%20inventory_Draft_20110321.pdf
    http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/the-pain-of-tail-docking-a-fact-of-life-for-millions-of-pigs-761687.html
    https://www.foodandwaterwatch.org/insight/antibiotic-resistance-101