Meat can make you sick.

CNN recently reported that almost 50% of meat is infected with dangerous bacteria. About 25% is infected with antibiotic resistant bacteria, aka superbugs like MRSA.

Here’s what they wrote:

Almost half of the meat and poultry sold at U.S. supermarkets and grocery stores contains a type of bacteria that is potentially harmful to humans, a new study estimates.

Researchers tested 136 packages of chicken, turkey, pork, and ground beef purchased at 26 grocery stores in five cities around the country, and found that 47 percent contained Staphylococcus aureus (S. aureus), a common cause of infection in people.

What’s more, roughly half of the contaminated samples contained strains of the bacteria that were resistant to at least three antibiotics, such as penicillin and tetracycline. Some strains were resistant to a half dozen or more

Emphasis added.

Remember, this isn’t new. Over two years ago, another study found MRSA in nearly half of factory farmed pigs AND the pig workers. Just over one year ago, CBS warned  “overuse of antibiotics in animals is leading to the creation of new strains of drug resistant bacteria that could make humans sick” and said “evidence of MRSA has been found in the nation’s meat supply.”

The CDC expressed concern about factory farms and the rise in drug-resistant bacteria. And in 2008 the LA Times warned “Factory farms produce cheap meat, until you consider the rivers of sewage, the contaminants and the superbugs.”

CNN is recommending that people cook meat thuroughly in order to make it safe to eat. And to make sure not to crosscontaminate other food or kitchenwares with uncooked meat. But there’s an easier way to kee your kitchen safe and feed your children clean foods: choose vegan.

Chicken, turkey and other poultry accounted for 17 percent of the food-borne illness outbreaks reported to the government. Beef and leafy vegetables were close behind, at 16 percent and 14 percent.

The report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention covers outbreaks in 2007. Poultry was also the No. 1 source of outbreaks in 2006. [...]

An estimated 87 million cases of food-borne illness occur in the United States each year, including 371,000 hospitalizations and 5,700 deaths, according to an Associated Press calculation that combines a CDC formula with recent population estimates. (source)

What are some of the easiest ways to avoid food poisoning?

• Wash your food well. Many pathogens can simply be washed away off of fruits and vegetables (though you cannot wash pathogens off of animal products like meat or cheese).
• Cook your food well, when possible. High temperatures kill many pathogens.
• Avoid foods that are likely to cause food poisoning, when possible. (For example, avoid eating chicken or beef.)

In my opinion, the best way to avoid food poisoning risk is to adopt a vegan diet that is mostly cooked foods (rather than raw) and to make sure any raw foods are thoroughly washed and prepared in a vegan kitchen before eating them.

Dear Vegan,

I care deeply about animals and the environment and so I’ve decided to change my diet. For the past week now I have been on a vegan diet. I’m feeling fine, but everyone around me is worried that I’ll get sick. I’m not sure which foods I should be eating in order to be healthy. And I have no idea how to answer my worried friends’ and family members’ questions. Any ideas would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you very much,

Veg-For-A-Week

Hi VFAW,

I recommend reading the articles here: http://veganhealth.org/ but I’ll be the first to say that’s a lot to read. It might seem a little daunting at first, so instead, just print out these two mainstream resources below. These guidelines are easy to understand and simple to implement:

• http://www.eatright.org/Public/content.aspx?id=6374
• http://www.mypyramid.gov/tips_resources/vegetarian_diets.html

If you’re still unsure what to eat, here are some vegan meal plans that you can follow. These are complete plans that fulfill standard nutritional requirements:

• http://www.veganhealth.org/articles/meals
• http://www.vegansoapbox.com/selfs-vegan-diet/

Lastly, find some vegan friends. They can show you new recipes, new places to dine, and they can help educate your friends and family about veganism. A great place to meet other vegans is at http://vegan.meetup.com/.

Congrats on your new lifestyle and good luck with educating your family and friends.

Sincerely,
Vegan

Take the Swine Flu, for example. Total American swine flu deaths leaped from 4000 last month to 10,000 this month:

“Federal health officials said Thursday that almost 10,000 people had died of swine flu since April, a significant jump from mortality numbers released last month.”

“A month ago, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimated that only about 4,000 had died.”

source: NY Times

Make a difference! Wash your hands, clean surfaces, stay home when you’re sick, cover your coughs and sneezes, and… stop eating animals! For more on that last topic, please read:

• Affordable meat = human health threat
• Who cares about the swine (flu)?
• Pork and the swine flu kill people

hat tip: vegan.com

From “Swine CAFOs and Novel H1N1 Flu: Separating Facts from Fears” comes this quote:

one potential source of the original outbreak—swine farming in concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs)—has received comparatively little attention by public health officials. CAFOs house animals by the thousands in crowded indoor facilities. But the same economy-of-scale efficiencies that allow CAFOs to produce affordable meat for so many consumers also facilitate the mutation of viral pathogens into novel strains that can be passed on to farm workers and veterinarians, according to Gregory Gray, director of the Center for Emerging Infectious Diseases at the University of Iowa College of Public Health.

“When respiratory viruses get into these confinement facilities, they have continual opportunity to replicate, mutate, reassort, and recombine into novel strains,” Gray explains. “The best surrogates we can find in the human population are prisons, military bases, ships, or schools. But respiratory viruses can run quickly through these [human] populations and then burn out, whereas in CAFOs—which often have continual introductions of [unexposed] animals—there’s a much greater potential for the viruses to spread and become endemic.”

More bits from the article, emphasis added:

• “workers exposed routinely to livestock can pass these zoonotic infections—which transmit readily among humans and animals—on to the wider public.”
• “Scientists can’t conclusively say if humans first infected pigs with the H1N1 virus or vice versa, Richt says. But what is clear, he adds, is that pigs have been a reservoir for the virus ever since.”
• “Swine CAFOs generate vast amounts of fecal waste, stored in onsite lagoons that can breach and pollute local watersheds during heavy rains. The facilities emit a piercing odor that can be detected up to 6 miles from its source”
• “OSHA typically exempts facilities with fewer than 11 employees from routine inspection unless otherwise requested by employees or other agencies. Yet, like many other modern production facilities, CAFOs are largely automated, so a typical factory farm housing 2,000 sows requires a crew of just 7 people“
• “If we find a high prevalence of viral infection with a given strain in January, why do we see it again the next January if the pigs live only six months before slaughter? We need to study the pigs, the workers, and the environment to understand how the viruses get around, and what sort of interventions we can take to limit transmission.”
• “Untreated hog wastes are also routinely sprayed on crop fields as fertilizer.”
• “research is biased to generate more industry profit.”
• “this much is clear: the current pandemic shows that viruses of animal origin can pose a substantial human health threat. And if CAFOs were to accelerate the evolution of these viruses, Gray says, then the public has a right to know how those viruses evolve and what steps can be taken to limit their spread. ‘If we find something new,’ he says, ‘we need to heighten surveillance to track it—not sit on it and pretend nothing’s happening until the problem explodes.’”

Animals, particularly pigs, have a lot in common with humans. That’s why some viruses spread between species, from pigs to people for example. This much scientists understand. They try to convey this through news articles, like this article about the origins of the Swine Flu, which says:

“there is a small but steady traffic of virus between America’s 110 million pigs and the 120,000 people who care for them.”

Sure, that’s one way to describe zoonotic disease transmission.
Except that “care” isn’t quite the right word to describe what pig farmers do: