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Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs) and Your Health
350 Plays1 year ago
(My apologies... I labeled this as "CONFINED Animal..." and not "CONCENTRATED Animal...". I have actually heard them referred to with both terms, but Concentrated is the preferred term.)
Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations are proliferating across America, and have even begun to spread to the UK and other countries. No scientific body nor ecological body approves of their existence, because of the immense harm CAFOs cause to the environment, the health of the people who live around the CAFO, and even to the economy.
In addition to the information in this episode, I am including some links to places that will give you more detailed information about these things, and the horrific impact they have on the environment, public health, and the economy. Please take some time to check some of them.
I apologize for the quality of the recording, but I recorded it outside in our summer shelter gazebo, and there was some wind noise. Even with that, though, I hope you find this very informative and educational... and that it stirs you to do something positive about this rampant attack on your health, your family's health, and the health of the planet.
CAFOs pose a serious threat to human health
CAFOS use massive amounts of water
Rachel Carson Council statement on CAFOs
Delmarva CAFOs sickening local residents
The hidden cost of cheap chicken
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to Holistic Health
00:00:00
Speaker
Hello and welcome to the full spectrum holistic health podcast. Now this podcast is all about holistic health, what it is, various holistic and alternative health therapies, and how those may help you to be a healthier person. Thanks for choosing to listen today, because I know that there are many podcasts out there for you to choose from, but I'm glad you're here.
00:00:24
Speaker
I'm the host for the podcast, Dr. Anthony Burton. I'm a Reiki master, EFT therapist, meditation teacher and shamanic practitioner and sound therapist. My goal is to help people be healthier in mind, body and spirit. And that's why I'm here. A large part of what I do is really educational in nature because so many people are unaware of the power and efficacy of various holistic and alternative therapies.
00:00:54
Speaker
In these podcasts, you'll hear stuff that I hope will inform you, enlighten you and energize and balance you. And of course, it's not only going to be my opinions and ideas, because occasionally I will be interviewing knowledgeable and interesting guests from a variety of areas of holistic, complimentary, and even allopathic medical practice. So kick back and relax, open your mind and listen.
00:01:19
Speaker
Spectrum Holistic is
Local Chicken Farm Controversy
00:01:20
Speaker
a complementary health and wellness business located in northwest Georgia, USA. Check out the website at www.spectrum-holistic.com.
00:01:37
Speaker
Gordon County, Georgia, which is where I live, is right in a belt of the United States. It runs right across Alabama, Georgia, Tennessee, up in the North Carolina, where conditions are almost perfect for chicken farming. And chicken is a big, big thing, not only in Georgia, but, I mean, throughout the rest of the nation. I mean, think about how many
00:02:06
Speaker
Oh, Chick-fil-A's, Kentucky Fried Chicken, and Zaxby's, and hundreds of other places that focus on chicken, Mojangles, and Popeye's Fried Chicken. Chicken is tremendous in the United States, but the problem is
00:02:25
Speaker
these industrial sized chicken farms where they raise all these chickens, go to these restaurants and go into grocery stores and everything. Well, they are not all they're cracked up to be. Now, recently here in Gordon County, the Board of Commissioners voted on the approval of a rezoning of some property to build what's called a CAFO. C-A-F-O-O-A
00:02:55
Speaker
confined animal feeding operation. This is things like cattle feedlots and poultry farms like this where they have huge quantities of chickens. Now this particular application, the applicant said that he was wanting to build eight chicken houses that are 60 feet wide by 550 feet long and over the course of a year he would have about
00:03:25
Speaker
1.4 million chickens going through those chicken houses. Now, problematically,
00:03:37
Speaker
Chicken houses are not good for the environment. They are not good for the people who live around them. They are not good for water, soil, and all kinds of things like that. They're not even economically good. Now,
Environmental and Health Impacts of Chicken Farms
00:03:54
Speaker
the first meeting of the Board of Commissioners, I was there, and I didn't get to speak, but I was there, and there were a lot of people who lived in the area surrounding that chicken farm.
00:04:04
Speaker
who objected strenuously to his building.
00:04:10
Speaker
They didn't like the fact that it would reduce property values. They didn't like the fact that it would create a stench so that people couldn't even get outside in their yard and barbecue or have their kids play in the yard without smelling this horrible smell. And believe me, a chicken house is a really nasty stench, especially when you have that big of a chicken house and that many in one place.
00:04:39
Speaker
So they tabled the issue at that board. And then they recently, that was on basic things. And then on June 6th,
00:04:50
Speaker
They had another board meeting and they brought it back to the floor. Well, last time they weren't able to get any motions before or against the chicken farm or the actual not the chicken farm but the zoning of the property for the chicken farm.
00:05:11
Speaker
This time, the motion was made and seconded, and there was one missing commissioner, so there were four out of five that were there. And of those four, three voted for it.
00:05:27
Speaker
I applaud the one who voted against it. He was the head of the board of commissions. The other three voted for it. He voted against it. I'm sorry, the head of the board of commissions voted against it. I presented a big chunk of material to both county administrator and to the members of the board of commissions who were there. And it's amazing to me that
00:05:55
Speaker
Given the factual information, what I gave them, and given that this chicken farm was going to be a benefit to one person who was going to run it. He was going to make a lot of money running, but to no one else and all the other people who lived around it were going to suffer from it. They still voted to approve the rezoning.
00:06:23
Speaker
Now, just a couple things. One is this chicken farm, the 109 acres, is it sits on a floodplain. That's not a good thing. It also has, there's a state waterway that runs through that property. Keep those things in mind. I'm going to probably do a lot of reading.
00:06:50
Speaker
to you instead of just saying off the top of my head because I want to present you with the information that I gave to the Gordon County Board of Commissioners on this application.
00:07:01
Speaker
and I want to be accurate about it, so I'm going to be reading a lot of this material. So please bear in mind that, and the reason, let me back up a moment, the reason I'm presenting this material to you at all is because you may or may not live in an area where there's a chicken farm, a capo,
00:07:21
Speaker
You may live in an area where there are beef cattle being raised and you can find animal feeding operations or hogs or turkeys or a number of other things. None, none of these, not one single CAFO is good for the people around it or for the environment.
00:07:45
Speaker
All right, this is the material that I presented to the Gordon County Board of Commissioners. And as I say, this is not good for people. And that's why as a holistic health practitioner, and my wife's an RN, we were both very much opposed to this and so
00:08:04
Speaker
were all the other people who lived around there. The only person who stood up in support of this application was the African, I think, brother. They both had the same one. Actually, here it is. Industrial-sized chicken farms and other CAFOs cost everyone money. In 2019, the American Public Health Association
00:08:32
Speaker
recommended the banning of all CAFOs, saying that the current system has, quote, externalized the cost of environmental degradation and adverse health impacts, keeping retail meat prices artificially low while shifting health and environmental costs onto communities and individual Americans, unquote. These externalized costs
00:08:56
Speaker
obscured by the low retail prices of CAFO-sourced products, chicken, pork, pork chops, beef roast, whatever, actually cost US taxpayers billions of dollars annually. And we'll get to the wise and wherefore of that. The arrival of CAFO in a rural neighborhood negatively impacts the animals because they are inherently cruel to animals. And if you don't care about cruelty to animals,
00:09:22
Speaker
That's your choice, you know, and I understand,
Public Health Risks from CAFOs
00:09:27
Speaker
but, you know, you should be at least concerned about the impact on your own health and your own local economy. The arrival of a CAFO in a rural neighborhood negatively impacts animals, the environment, local economies, farmers, and workers, and hundreds or thousands of nearby residents. Now the APHA, the American Public Health Association,
00:09:48
Speaker
are not the only ones who recognize it. The Union of Concerned Scientists, another organization, estimates that CAFOs leave massive bills behind for taxpayers. Listen to these numbers. $26 billion in reduced property values from odor and water contamination. Between $1.5 billion and $3 billion annually in drug-resistant illnesses attributed to the overuse of antibiotics
00:10:19
Speaker
in livestock production. I'm going to talk more about that later. Remember that. $4.1 billion in soil and groundwater contamination from animal manure leakage.
00:10:32
Speaker
Now, I know that there are people who own chicken farms and I say, oh gosh, that stinks. They go, smells like money to me because that's how they make their living. They have decided, they have made the decision to grow chicken. Okay. And so I've had some people saying, well, don't you eat chicken? Well, be honest. We, my wife and I, we, we sell the meat chicken unless it's organically raised because well, we don't, we worry about the inherent dangers of stress hormones.
00:11:00
Speaker
in CAFO animals, which are a pretty big problem, and also the preventive antibiotics used in factory farm chicken. So not everyone eats chicken. Here's the point though. Everyone, everyone has to breathe air and drink water.
00:11:21
Speaker
Now, antibiotics are great. I'm a holistic health professional, and I know that I don't work in the hospitals and that kind of thing, but I believe that sometimes antibiotics are a good thing. If the animal or person is sick, the problem is they use preventative antibiotics when there is no illness already present, and that creates all sorts of problems.
00:11:49
Speaker
you've probably heard of MRSA. It's a drug-resistant, antibiotic-resistant bacteria that is just unbelievably bad. It developed from the overuse of unnecessary antibiotics such as those used in preventive measures in chicken houses and cows and
00:12:12
Speaker
you know, dairy and all kinds of things like that. And because what it does is it kills off the weak strains of the bacteria. Okay. It slaughters them, but the stronger strains of the bacteria, they survive and they thrive. Now, when you give preventative antibiotics to animals or people who actually are not sick, well, this antibody kills off the weak bacteria.
00:12:40
Speaker
So the Stormwinds do survive, because those are just there. Problem is, it doesn't just affect the chickens and their meat. Well, chickens, they pee and they poop.
00:12:56
Speaker
So their urine and their fecal matter, what's called dander from the chicken, dust that goes under the feathers. If you've been around birds at all, if you've had pet birds, you know that birds produce a lot of dust, dander on their feathers. All this other detritus from the chickens will carry the antibiotics because it gets into their system. It gets into their skin and their feathers and everything else.
00:13:21
Speaker
and it'll be in that material. And also, if they're given growth hormones, you know, chickens are given growth hormones nowadays to make them beef up fast, or maybe I should say, chicken up faster. And it carries these hormones and antibiotics into any runoff water, and this in turn will seep into the groundwater. And I got news for you people, these things do not simply disappear.
00:13:51
Speaker
They'll just disappear. They'll go away. Oh, we've poured it out on the ground, so it's gone. No. We've poured it out on the ground and it seeped through the ground and it goes into runoff water and then it goes into the groundwater. So any groundwater like that or any surface water is going to have that antibiotic in the formometer. Now many people in the area around this proposed operation have wells.
00:14:21
Speaker
We have a well. Unfortunately, this week the well pump has died. I'm going to replace it. But luckily I have a backup from the city water or the municipal water. So these antibiotics get into the wells.
00:14:38
Speaker
and they don't just disappear they get in the water table and they're consumed by people and animals and they're also used to water crops so it goes into the crops and that means you if you if you're eating the carrots or whatever then it watered by this water that has you know the bacteria and antibiotics and all the stuff in it and guess what you're eating antibiotics and you're eating a hummus
00:15:06
Speaker
In Gordon County, Georgia, where we have karst hydrography. And so we have aquifers that are highly productive, maybe they produce a lot of water, but they are extremely vulnerable to contamination because of water seeps through the shale and what's called the silicone. Yeah, it seeps through these stone layers and it gets into the aquifer.
00:15:35
Speaker
And so people with wells, guess what? They're drinking that water and they are getting the same hormones and the same preventive antibiotics that they don't need. Now, I mentioned earlier that there is a creek, the waterway that passes through, it's called Lick Creek, passes all the way across this proposed location of the Chicken Avenue. And in fact, the floodplain nearly surrounds the property.
00:16:05
Speaker
Now, given the massive amount of waste effluent from approximately 1.4 million birds that are going to be raising those chicken houses in a year's time, that is a lot of waste material. They call it dry litter. But, friend, when you've got 1.4 million chickens squatting, pooping and peeing in the litter, it is not dry. Let me tell you. I would like to know how the owner is going to guarantee that that waste matter is going to be kept out of Lick Creek.
00:16:37
Speaker
and the surrounding floodplain and the groundwater. Now, Lick Creek, let me tell you something. Lick Creek feeds into another waterway called Kusawai, Kusawai River. And the Kusawai River feeds into another river. And guess what? That river is where both the city and the county get their municipal water supply.
00:17:04
Speaker
Yeah, so it's not just the people who live around it, the rural folks who are going to be affected by this stuff. If that water seeps out into the groundwater or it washes out in a heavy rainstorm, believe me, the flooding happens, especially in a floodplain. That's why they call it that. It's going to be gotten, and it's going to get into the creek, and it's going to get to the river, and then it's going to get into our city and county municipal water system.
00:17:35
Speaker
Okay, so here's some more health facts. Air pollution from CAFOs, you know the term now, is now linked to more deaths than pollution from coal-fired power plants. Let me say that again. There are more deaths that are linked to pollution from CAFOs, air pollution from combined animal feeding operations, than the pollution from coal-fired power plants. And what are we doing about coal-fired power plants?
00:18:05
Speaker
The government is saying, hey, you're going to shut those things down because they're not helping. Why are they allowing the K-Fos to continue? A landmark 2020 study found that the U.S. has had 15,900 nearly 16,000 air quality related deaths annually just due to agricultural production. And the 80 percent of those 12,700 are attributable
00:18:33
Speaker
to animal-based stuff. Animal production and from growing to animal feed, okay? And you have to have someone growing to animal feed in massive quantities to feed 1.4 million chickens. Okay, that's air pollution. Now, water pollution is equally serious. CAFO-generated manure that seeps into the groundwater may contain antibiotics, may contain pathogens, bacteria,
00:19:03
Speaker
growth hormone, nitrogen and phosphorus. Nitrogen and phosphorus add to the pollution and cause algae blooms and stuff. Let me talk about the hormones for just a moment. Quick mention of the goal hormones.
00:19:21
Speaker
arise in the last few years in young girls hitting puberty early. I mean, kids, you know, 50 years ago, girls hit menstruation maybe at 15, 16. Now, girls are menstruating sometimes at 10 or 11 years old. Why does this happen?
00:19:42
Speaker
because of these hormones that are getting into the water that are the same hormones that are being used to make the chicken and pork and the beef grow faster and stronger and have more meat on it that causes these girls to menstruate early. And that's a bad, bad thing because their bodies and their minds are not ready for that yet.
00:20:11
Speaker
Ultimately, capos could put water supplies at risk for about 11% of U.S. residents. Now that's 34 million people in 2020 who rely on private wells. It could be putting risk from the runoff and stuff and all that, the seepage from the capos. As I said earlier, my wife and I, we rely on a well for a household water supply, for orchard and a garden.
00:20:39
Speaker
I know we're not the only residents in the area who have wells. So, you know, it's more people. And there were a lot of people who came to the radio to protest because they have wells and they do not want to be exposed to this stuff. Now, the air pollution from it is largely composed of stuff like toxic fumes. Now, I don't know if you've ever been around a chicken house.
00:21:09
Speaker
maybe inside one or close to one. They generate ammonia, hydrogen sulfate, particulate matter, you know like the dust from the feathers and all that stuff. It can cause headaches, lung impairment, cardiovascular illnesses, high blood pressure and premature death.
00:21:28
Speaker
My wife is an RN, and eight years ago, she was working as a hospital administrator, not a hospital administrator, but a lead nurse, lead RN, in an emergency room, and they had someone to come in there. And then the emergency room transfer, well, actually, she was working at ICU, and they had emergency room transfers, this girl in.
00:21:54
Speaker
And this girl was a young girl. She was young, otherwise healthy. Good, strong person. But she had worked in her family in a chicken house over the weekend. And because she had breathed in the dust from the chicken house, she had contracted a terrible infection in her lungs. And she lived about eight weeks, and then she died. And she was just a kid. Wasn't out of high school yet.
00:22:25
Speaker
because of what she contracted in working in the chicken head. So these toxic pew can cause all these problems. They've also linked these odors and tapos to stress and depression and just general feelings of fatigue.
00:22:45
Speaker
Now, the agriculture industry, I said that they use preventative, preventative antibiotics, right? Now, I understand the use of antibodies when there is a real infection, a bacterial infection. But the idea of just saying, well, we're going to give all the chickens antibiotics or all the cows or all the babies, whatever, antibiotics to keep them from getting sick. That's stupid, stupid, stupid.
00:23:15
Speaker
and the agricultural industry uses approximately 71% of all the antibiotics produced in the United States. 71% just in the agricultural industry. That doesn't include veterinary for your dog and cat, you know, when they get sick or for yourself or your child or whatever. There's a strong link between antibiotics used in agriculture and antibiotic resistant bacteria. According to the CDC,
00:23:45
Speaker
About 95,000 cases of MRSA occur each year, with about 19,000 of those being fatal. That's over 20% of those cases.
00:24:01
Speaker
being fatal. MRSA is caused by pathogens becoming resistant to antibiotics, specifically because of the overuse of antibiotics and the consumption of preventive antibiotics. And if you drink the water that contains the runoff from one of these chicken houses where they're giving preventive antibiotics, guess what? You are consuming preventive antibiotics.
00:24:31
Speaker
There was a report from 2000
Community Response and Call to Action
00:24:33
Speaker
that looked at an antibiotic resistant salmonella outbreak that occurred in the United Kingdom. And they trace this outbreak back, they trace, bing, bing, bing, bing, back to a dairy farm where a particular antibiotic was used in the month before the outbreak. The use of the antibiotic in the dairy resulted in resistant infections in humans.
00:25:02
Speaker
I was really, really unhappy. My wife and I were just, there were people at the second meeting where they approved this rezoning that were really upset. I mean, they got up and yelled about it and they just yelled and were out of water. And I understand that. I didn't get up and yell, but I was not happy. The approval of these chicken houses like this, especially one this size and located in a floodplain and on a natural waterway,
00:25:32
Speaker
was a gross dereliction of the duties of the commissioners. The commissioners are all responsible to all the citizens of the county, not simply to one person who wishes to make more money, all the while endangering the health and well-being of thousands of Gordon County citizens.
00:25:55
Speaker
Now I have some URLs and links to some of this stuff. One about factory farm air pollution lethality. I've got another one for the APHA farm and the factory farm. And I've got another one on air pollution from forced air cooling in chicken houses.
00:26:12
Speaker
I'm going to put those links in the description so if you want to click on those, keep yourself informed. If it's important to be involved in local government when things like this are impacting or could possibly have an impact on your health and your children's health and the health of those around you.
00:26:37
Speaker
I'm not saying that you should storm the Bastille or have a riot or anything, but you need to get involved. You
Future Episodes and Engagement
00:26:46
Speaker
need to get involved. You need to vote for people who have your own health and well-being in mind, not for people who have the financial well-being of one or two people within your county in mind, instead of the whole county that they are supposed to be serving and working
00:27:10
Speaker
very upset with the whole thing, not happy at all. And I hope that you inform yourself and that you learn more about this whole issue so that in the future, if something like this comes up for you, you can look at it and say, hey, I have got to speak out. I have got to make sure that they don't build one of these things.
00:27:36
Speaker
where it's going to affect my health, the health of my family, the health of my children, the health of my friends and neighbors. Man, I want to thank you for listening to me rant a little bit, and forgive me for doing so much reading, but I wanted to make sure I got the facts straight. I wanted to make sure I looked at things as I had them written down, and not just tried to calm off the top of my head, because there's a lot of factual stuff in there, a lot of facts and figures.
00:28:05
Speaker
So I hope you didn't mind that and I hope that you pass this on to as many other people as you possibly can. Appreciate your time and
00:28:19
Speaker
Oh, I'm going to tell you something else. Soon I'm going to be having a, uh, interviewed an acupuncture just this past Sunday at the church. And she's been the acupuncture business for a long time, about about a year. And she even taught acupuncture. And if you're having any interest at all in acupuncture,
00:28:39
Speaker
and wondering what it is, how it might work, what it could be used for, that kind of thing. I urge you to come back and check in, listen to that particular interview because it's a good one. Now, there's a little bit of background always in that one because we were recording after church and there were still people in the building and listen to talking and laughing and going,
00:29:04
Speaker
And you might notice here, even, we've got some background left because I decided to record this down in our summer shelter. And there's some breeze and some birds and I heard some frogs a few moments ago. So hope you don't mind the nature noises. I want to thank you for being here and listening to the podcast today. I hope it's been interesting and informative and thought provoking.
00:29:31
Speaker
If you did find it interesting, please be sure to return for another episode and tell your friends about it too. I appreciate if you do that, you can share directly from most podcast platforms and subscribing to the podcast would be great. If you want to tell me you liked the show or that you hated it, that you agree or disagree with me or anything else, really go for it. Just leave a message for me on your podcast platform.
00:30:00
Speaker
Until next time, stay safe, stay healthy, and keep an open mind. Namaste.