How to end swine flu: scrap whole bloody meat industry
by JIM HARRIS

This is the real reason chickens cross the road. (Illustration by Zipora Schulz)

I don’t want to alarm you, but experts are warning of a possible combined epidemic of swine flu, bird flu and mad cow disease. The good news is you don’t have to stop eating pork, chicken or beef.

You see, the important thing is that we never stop doing what we’re doing. That’s exactly what the terrorists would like. Not that terrorists have anything to do with it — all the aforementioned diseases are caused by practices involved in raising animals for slaughter and consumption — but the terrorists would be happy anyway because they’re just impossibly contrary individuals.

All we need to do is find ways to cope with all of the havoc that we wreak. That’s how we’ve always dealt with problems that we created; we build fallout shelters rather than dismantle nuclear weapons, we surgically remove fat rather than eat less and exercise, and we look for cures for every type of disease rather than try to eliminate the cause of the disease.

To our credit, we have finally made an effort to purge the dangerous habit of smoking from our country. Maybe it’s time we took a look at the meat industry that endangers our health through heart disease, livestock-transmitted diseases, and water and air pollution from stockyards. What’s that you say, “But I love my Clucky McBeef ’N Bacon Burgers?” Oh, right, freedom of choice and all that. I forgot. Is that the second amendment? That makes perfect sense.

Lost in all this discussion about health concerns is the suffering that food animals endure. No one ever mentions that as a factor in why we should scrap the whole bloody industry. Does anyone out there want to really discuss this matter? I’m willing, because I’ve been to stockyards and slaughterhouses and have been studying this horror all my adult life. No takers? Not surprising.

Trust me, no one who has a brain and a heart wants to confront this issue. Congress passes “humane slaughter” laws, and folks wash their hands and walk away feeling like real humanitarians. That’s a joke. To be humane would be to stop the whole bloody business. We have the power to do just that, and we don’t because we’re creatures of habit, and because we’re in denial about the needless suffering that we’re causing.

Do you know how I feel when I see Jim Perdue joking with his chickens on TV commercials, or when I see that billboard of cows writing, “Eat More Chicken?” It makes me think that humans are a cruel, insensitive species. And I like to laugh. Hell, it’s what I do, I see the humor in almost everything, but I don’t see any humor in that.

I feel sorry for the people who become infected with swine flu, and I feel sorry for the animals who have become unwitting breeding grounds for the disease. The real tragedy is that it was all preventable.

If my preaching makes you mad (and you don’t have mad cow disease), then write in and state your case, because I think this is a discussion that so-called civilized people need to have. If it makes you uncomfortable, then what is that telling you? Most likely, though, you’ll just shrug it off and forget about it, as usual. Don’t worry, I won’t mention it again. (Yeah, right.)

Ed. Note: If we saw to it that farm animals did not suffer, then humans would also suffer a great deal less. Huge factory farms, where chickens, pigs, veal calves, etc., are cruelly jammed together with barely enough room to move in order to maximize profits, are ideal breeding grounds for infectious diseases, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. This repulsive congestion, which invariably leads to extreme stress and aggression in the animals, as it does when humans are similarly confined, contributes to diseases like swine flu. Not to mention the fact that these barbaric “factory farms,” according to the Environmental Protection Agency, are also among the leading producers of nitrous oxide, ammonia and other poisonous air pollutants. So when we begin to treat farm animals in a more humane manner, we will be treating our own health in a more humane manner as well.