AR-News: (US Factory farms deemed unhealthy MD)

[Animalara2003 at aol.com]

It's a horror picture often alluded to in children's movies like Babe or 
Charlotte's Web; thousands of animals crowded inside a dirty slaughterhouse. But 
factory farms are more than just a scene from a movie; they are a growing 
reality across our country. 
In a recent resolution, the American Public Health Association (APHA) has 
called for help from government organizations in putting a moratorium on new 
factory farms. 
They also propose funding to encourage research that examines the effect of 
factory farms on the environment and its workers. 
Factory farms, technically called Concentrated Animal Food Operations 
(CAFOs), have been thought to be responsible for a variety of problems in not only 
their surrounding environment but also in the health of livestock and safety of 
food production across the country. Approximately 54 percent of U.S. livestock 
is currently estimated to be concentrated on only 5 percent of livestock 
farms. 
The center at Johns Hopkins which examines problems such as those caused by 
factory farms is the Center for a Livable Future (CLF), located at the Johns 
Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. 
Robert Lawrence, director of the CLF, explains its history and goals. "The 
Center for a Livable Future was created seven years ago," he says. Its purpose 
is "to explore the connections between diet and human health, between diet and 
food production system, between the industrialization of food production and 
the environment, and between the degradation of the environment and hazards to 
human health." 
A CAFO is defined by the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) 
as a farm with more than a certain number of animals. 
For instance, more than 1,000 beef cattle would put a farm in the category of 
a CAFO. 



full story:
http://www.jhunewsletter.com/vnews/display.v/ART/2004/02/06/4022eeb735ddb

"The world is a dangerous place,
not because of those who do evil,
but because of those who look on and do nothing.",
Albert Einstein

          /\  /\            
>' .' < 












    
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.envirolink.org/pipermail/ar-news/attachments/20040206/47185fae/attachment.html