See All-Creatures.org Health Position and Disclaimer
Martha Rosenberg,
AlterNet.org
July 2017
Most big Pharma companies, including Pfizer, Merck, Boehringer Ingolheim, Sanofi and Novartis operate similar lucrative animal divisions. Unlike "people" Pharma, Animal Pharma largely exists under the public’s radar: drug ads do not appear on TV nor do safety or marketing scandals reach Capitol Hill. Still, conflicts of interest abound.
Grilled suckling pig on a plate in banquet restaurant. Photo Credit:
MariyaL/Shutterstock
Recently, Organic Consumers Association, along with Friends of the Earth
and Center for Food Safety filed suit against chicken giant Sanderson Farms
for falsely marketing its products as “100% Natural” even though it contains
many unnatural and even prohibited substances. Sanderson chicken products
tested positive for the antibiotic chloramphenical, banned in food animals,
and amoxicillin, not approved for use in poultry production. Sanderson Farms
products also tested positive for residues of steroids, hormones,
anti-inflammatory drugs and even ketamine, a drug with hallucinogenic
effects.
This is far from the first time unlabeled human drugs have been found in
U.S. meat. The New York Times reported that most chicken feather-meal
samples examined in one study contained Tylenol, one-third contained the
antihistamine Benadryl, and samples from China actually contained Prozac.
The FDA has caught hatcheries injecting antibiotics directly into chicken
eggs. Tyson Foods was caught injecting eggs with the dangerous human
antibiotic gentamicin.
The Natural Resources Defense Council has reported the presence of the
potentially dangerous herbs fo-ti, lobelia, kava kava and black cohosh in
the U.S. food supply as well as strong the antihistamine hydroxyzine. Most
of the ingredients are from suppliers in China.
Animal Pharma still mostly under the radar
Many people have heard of Elanco, Eli Lilly’s animal drug division, and
Bayer HealthCare Animal Health. But most big Pharma companies, including
Pfizer, Merck, Boehringer Ingolheim, Sanofi and Novartis operate similar
lucrative animal divisions. Unlike "people" Pharma, Animal Pharma largely
exists under the public’s radar: drug ads do not appear on TV nor do safety
or marketing scandals reach Capitol Hill. Still, conflicts of interest
abound.
“No regulation currently exists that would prevent or restrict a
veterinarian from owning their own animals and/or feed mill,” says the
Center for Food Safety. “If a licensed veterinarian also owns a licensed
medicated feed mill, they stand to profit by diagnosing a flock or herd and
prescribing their own medicated feed blend.”
Because the activities of Animal Pharma are so underreported, few Americans
realize that most of the meat they eat is banned in other industrialized
countries. One example is ractopamine, a controversial growth-promoting
asthma-like drug marketed as Optaflexx for cattle, Paylean for pigs, and
Topmax for turkeys and banned in the European Union, China and more than 100
other countries. Also used in U.S. meat production is Zilmax, a Merck drug
similar to ractopamine that the FDA linked to 285 cattle deaths during six
years of administration. Seventy-five animals lost hooves, 94 developed
pneumonia and 41 developed bloat in just two years, Reuters reported.
The European Union boycotts the U.S.' hormone-grown beef. The routinely used
synthetic hormones zeranol, trenbolone acetate and melengestrol acetate pose
"increased risks of breast cancer and prostate cancer," says the European
Commission's Scientific Committee on Veterinary Measures. "Consumption of
beef derived from Zeranol-implanted cattle may be a risk factor for breast
cancer," according to an article in the journal Anticancer Research.
The European Union has also traditionally boycotted U.S. chickens because
they are dipped in chlorine baths. In the U.S. it’s perfectly legal to
‘wash’ butchered chicken in strongly chlorinated water, according to a
report in the Guardian:
These practices aren’t allowed in the EU, and the dominant European view has been that, far from reducing contamination, they could increase it because dirty abattoirs with sloppy standards would rely on it [chlorine] as a decontaminant rather than making sure their basic hygiene protocols were up to scratch.
Other germ-killing or germ-retarding chemicals routinely used in U.S.
food production include nitrites and nitrates in processed meat (declared
carcinogens by the World Health Organization in 2016), the parasiticide
formalin legally used in shrimp production, and carbon monoxide to keep meat
looking red in the grocery store no matter how old it really is. Many
thought public revulsion at the ammonia puffs used to discourage E. Coli
growth in the notorious beef-derived “pink slime” in 2012 forced the product
into retirement. But the manufacturer is fighting back aggressively.
Antibiotics are the least of unlabeled animal drugs
According to the Center for Food Safety, Animal Pharma uses over 450 animal
drugs, drug combinations and other feed additives “to promote growth of the
animals and to suppress the negative effects that heavily-concentrated
confinement has on farm animals.”
The revelations about Sanderson Farms should come as no surprise given
that despite new antibiotic regulations rolled out in 2013, and even more
recently, antibiotic use in farm operations is on the rise. Sanderson Farms
revelations are no surprise.
Last year I asked Michael Hansen, a senior staff scientist at Consumers
Union, how the 2013 FDA guidance asking Pharma to voluntarily restrict
livestock antibiotics by changing the approved uses language on labels was
working out. Dr. Hansen told me “growth production” had been removed from
labels but the drugs are still routinely used for the new indication of
“disease prevention.”
After the guidance was published, a Reuters investigation found Tyson Foods,
Pilgrim’s Pride, Perdue Farms, George’s and Koch Foods using antibiotics
“more pervasively than regulators realize.” Pilgrim’s Pride’s feed mill
records show the antibiotics bacitracin and monensin are added “to every
ration fed to a flock grown early this year.” (Pilgrim’s Pride threatened
legal action against Reuters for its finding.) Also caught red-handed using
antibiotics, despite denying it on their website, was Koch Foods, a supplier
to Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurants. Koch’s Chief Financial Officer, Mark
Kaminsky, reportedly said that he regretted the wording on the website.
But antibiotics are the least of the unlabeled drugs and chemicals lurking
in meat. According to the Associated Press, U.S. chickens continue to be fed
with inorganic arsenic to produce quicker weight gain with less food (the
same reason antibiotics are given) despite some public outcry a few years
ago. Arsenic is also given to turkeys, hogs and chickens for enhanced color.
Such use “contribute[s] to arsenic exposure in the U.S. population,” says
according to research in Environmental Health Perspectives.
The appealing pink color of farmed salmon is also achieved with the
chemicals astaxanthin and canthaxanthin. In the wild, salmon eat crustaceans
and algae which make them pink; on farms they are an unappetizing and
unmarketable gray.
There are legitimate reasons to use drugs, primarily to treat disease.
Cattle host stomach-churning liver flukes, eyeworms, lungworms, stomach
worms, thin-necked intestinal worms and whipworms, all of which are treated
with parasiticides. Turkeys suffer from aspergillosis (brooder pneumonia),
avian influenza, avian leucosis, histomoniasis, coccidiosis, coronavirus,
erysipelas, typhoid, fowl cholera, mites, lice, herpes, clostridial
dermatitis, cellulitis and more for which they are also treated with
unlabeled drugs. (The Federal Register says the anti-coccidial drug
halofuginone used in turkeys "is toxic to fish and aquatic life" and "an
irritant to eyes and skin.” Users should take care to "Keep [it] out of
lakes, ponds, and streams.") The endocrine disrupter Bisphenol A (BPA) has
even been found in fresh turkey meat.
Food animals are also routinely given antifungal drugs and vaccines. Porcine
epidemic diarrhea, which killed millions of animals in recent years, is
treated with a vaccine. And a vaccine for the flock-killing bird flu is in
the works. In fact, Big Food is working with Big Pharma to replace the
widely assailed antibiotics with vaccines.
Drug use in food animals will get worse, not better
There are two reasons drug residues in food animals will soon grow worse not
better. In exchange for China agreeing to accept U.S. beef after a long
hiatus, the U.S. agreed to import cooked chickens from China. China’s food
safety record is abysmal including rat meat sold as lamb, gutter oil sold as
cooking oil, baby formula contaminated with melamine and frequent bird flu
epidemics. Globalization dangers already exist with seafood, most of which
comes from countries that use chemicals and drugs banned in the U.S.
The second reason is the U.S. meat industry’s increasing move toward
privatization and corporate self-policing—phasing out U.S. meat inspectors
in favor of the “honor system.” USDA’s “New Poultry Inspection System”
(NPIS) shamelessly allows poultry producers to switch to a voluntary program
that allows for non-government poultry inspections. Such privatization deals
are the wave of the future as federal meat inspectors are ignored and phased
out by the government.
After all, we are living with an administration that sees regulations as
nothing more than an impediment to Big Ag’s cheap meat agenda.
This story first appeared in Organic Consumers Association.
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