Sludge Watch ==> Killing us with industrial farming - weaponizing and demonizing manure

[Maureen Reilly]

Sludgewatch:

We do well to remember that it is the industrial farm with its rush for 
profit that took to the practice of the 'finishing feedlot'.  Here in their final 
days, cattle are trucked to  overcrowded pens where they are fed
on a largely grain diet so they will put on the fat that will make them 
weigh more when they get on the scale at the slaughterhouse.

Cattle aren't designed to eat this rich food, and it turns acid in their 
intestines...upsetting the non pathogenic
E coli that normally inhabit the cattle gut. This stressful feed practice 
gave rise to the pathogenic strain E coli 0157:H7.
E.coli mated with  the shigella pathogen...and shigella conferred 
the trait whereby the toxic bacteria can punch a hole through the intestines,
leading to the tell-tale bloody diarrhea and renal failure of Ecoli 0157:H7.

So when people hear E coli 0157:H7 they think of manure ... cattle poo... 
not sewage treatment sludge or effluent.

They too easily forget that human poo is only a fraction of what goes into 
sludge, septage, sewage effluent.
Rendering plants and slaughterhouses bring their wastes, chock-a-block with 
these pathogens, to the sewage treatment
plant where they do rather better than other Ecoli in the fight for 
survival.

It is startling that we allow a feed practice that creates such a virulent 
health risk.  Is manure to blame? No it is industrial farming that is to blame 
for generating and perpetuating this pathogen.  Once released into the environment
we can't make any assumptions on how it got into spinach packages....it could 
have arrived through any number of avenues...contaminated effluent from 
the Monterey sewage treatment effluent as irrigation water, or contaminated wash water
from the spinach processing facility as irrigation water, or biofilms on irrigation pipes.

Some have suggested roam deer pooping on fields ?  Not sure we will ever find out
for sure. But I'll say this...it is easier to find animals at fault.  Because animals don't have
bank accounts and assets that can be seized through wrongful death suits.


Term for today: CAFO - confined animal feeding operation

.............................................

E. coli Spinach Outbreak Caused by Cows?
by Stephanie Bloyd, Mother Earth News Assistant Editor | September 22, 2006 
|  Read Comments (5)


BRIAN PRECHTEL/COURTESY USDA ARS
Contaminated ground water from industrial cattle farms may be responsible 
for the recent E. coli outbreak caused by tainted spinach.


Groundwater contaminated by cattle and used to irrigate spinach crops in 
California is under suspicion in the investigation of the current E. coli 
outbreak that has infected more than 100 people, killing one. This 
particular strain of E. coli, O157:H7, is found in the intestinal tracts of 
cattle raised on a grain diet, according to a recent New York Times op-ed 
piece.
U.S. researchers have found that high-grain diets make E. coli more potent. 
When cattle are fattened on grain, their digestive tracts become unusually 
acidic and kill off most of the E. coli. But the bacteria that survive are 
those that have adapted themselves to an acidic environment. This is a major 
problem for human health because our first line of defense is the acidity of 
our own digestive juices. Acid-resistant feedlot bacteria can survive our 
gastric juices in sufficient number to make us ill.
By contrast, the E. coli from grass-fed cattle remains sensitive to acid and 
is quickly destroyed in our stomachs. "Switching cattle from grass to grain 
to speed their growth has created a lot of unforeseen problems," says Jo 
Robinson, grass-fed expert and author of the book Pasture Perfect.
For instance, Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE, or more commonly, mad 
cow disease), has not been found in grass-fed animals. Mad cow is thought to 
be caused by feeding cattle pieces of brain and nerve tissue from other 
infected animals. (This practice was abolished in the United States in 
1997.) When humans consume meat from animals with mad cow disease, they risk 
contracting its human form - Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease. Mad cow disease has 
not been found among grass-fed animals because they exclusively eat forage 
materials.
For more on grass-fed beef, see Better Beef in the October/November 2005 
issue of Mother Earth News. And you can learn more about factory farming by 
watching The Meatrix, an award-winning online video. \

http://www.motherearthliving.com/issues/motherearthliving/livestock/Ecoli-Spinach_301-1.html 
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