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News :: Animal Rights |
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mad cow is spreading! |
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by Penny
(No verified email address) |
02 Jul 2004
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mad cow is spreading!
“Other animals could be harboring their own versions of mad cow disease
Other animals could be harboring their own versions of mad cow disease (i.e., transmissible spongiform encephalopathies).
European scientists recognize that transmissible spongiform encephalopathies (TSEs) can jump between species, and thus, their countries have banned the feeding of animals to animals, but in the U.S., it remains a legal and universal practice to feed pigs, chickens, and turkeys back to one another, turning natural herbivores into not just carnivores, but cannibals. Dr. Paul Brown, medical director for the U.S. Public Health Service, explicitly says that pigs and chickens could pass TSEs to humans.
It is also legal in the U.S. to feed ruminants (e.g., elk, deer, cows, and sheep) to pigs, chickens, turkeys, and fish and then to feed those animals back to cows and sheep, who are natural herbivores. Since we know that sheep, deer, and elk in the U.S. have TSEs, we know that we are continuing to do exactly what caused this disease in the first place.
Although the issue of feeding cows to cows has been of particular concern, the problem is even more severe for chickens and pigs. In fact, of all the meat and bone meal that is processed into food for farmed animals, 43 percent is fed to birds, 13 percent is fed to pigs, and only 10 percent is fed to cows, so any ban on feeding animal carcasses to cows does not even begin to address the overall violation of WHO recommendations.
Foodborne Pathogens and Other Toxins
There are more than 50 million cases of meat-related foodborne illness every year, resulting in more than 3,000 deaths, and consumer advocates argue that food safety concerns now require meat-eaters who don't want to poison their families to treat their kitchens like biohazard laboratories.
But even if you are lucky enough to avoid food poisoning, you can't avoid the array of drugs and chemicals that infest meat in the United States. Chickens, pigs, cows, and fish accumulate toxic chemicals in their flesh and fat, which is why meat and dairy products are responsible for almost all the toxic residues—dioxins, pesticides, herbicides, hormones, and antibiotics—consumed by Americans. In fact, 80 to 90 percent of dietary pesticide exposure, as well as 100 percent of dietary hormone and dioxin exposure, comes from eating animal products, and many of these chemicals are known to cause cancer in human beings.
Other Ailments Related to Eating Meat
Meat, dairy products, and eggs are completely devoid of fiber and complex carbohydrates, the nutrients that we're supposed to be consuming more of, and are laden with saturated fat and cholesterol, which make us fat and lethargic in the short term and lead to clogged arteries and heart attacks in the long term.
Eliminating animal foods from your diet reduces the risk of some of our biggest killers. According to Dr. T. Colin Campbell, nutritional researcher at Cornell University and director of the largest epidemiological study in history, “'The vast majority of all cancers, cardiovascular diseases, and other forms of degenerative illness can be prevented simply by adopting a plantbased diet.” Heart disease, cancer, strokes, diabetes, osteoporosis, obesity, and other diseases have all been linked to meat and dairy consumption. |
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