From wheeler@super.org Wed Feb 24 17:52:26 1993
Date: Thu, 1 Oct 92 10:33:46 EDT
From: wheeler@super.org (Ferrell S. Wheeler)
To: tms@cs.umd.edu
Subject: BB/FS Health



FACT SHEET: DAMAGED HEALTH

  Beyond Beef Campaign
  1130 17th St., NW
  Suite 300
  Washington, D.C.  20036
  Tel: 202-775-1132
  Fax: 202-775-0074


The Real Costs of Beef:  Damaged Health 

  Beef contains high levels of cholesterol and saturated fat and is
frequently contaminated by chemicals and disease.  Beef may be one of
the more unhealthy foods on the market today.

* Nearly 70 percent, or 1.5 million of the 2.1 million deaths in the
United States in 1987, were from diseases associated with diet --
particularly diets high in saturated fat and cholesterol, according to
a U.S. Surgeon General's report.[1]

* Many scientific studies have found a high correlation between the
consumption of red meat -- which is high in saturated fats and
cholesterol -- and heart disease, stroke, and colon and breast
cancer.[2]

* In 1990, the largest study ever done on the health effects on
consuming animal-derived foods confirmed the results of previous studies
showing a high correlation between meat consumption and the incidence of
heart disease and cancer.  Participating researchers followed the eating
habits of 6,500 people living in twenty-five provinces in China.[3]

* The Chinese study found that Chinese consume 20 percent more calories
than Americans, but that Americans are 25 percent fatter.  That's
because 37 percent of the calories in the U.S. diet comes from fat,
whereas less than 15 percent of the calories in the rural Chinese diet
comes from fat.  The study also found that 70 percent of the protein in
the Western diet comes from animal sources and 30 percent from plants.
In China, only 11 percent comes from animal products and 89 percent from
plants.[4]

* The American Heart Association, the American Cancer Society, the
National Academy of Sciences, and the American Academy of Pediatrics are
just a few of the medical, scientific, and professional associations that
recommend a reduction in the consumption of red meat and other
animal-derived foods and a shift to a more vegetarian diet.[5]

* Beef contains the highest concentration of herbicides of any food sold
in America, according to the national Research Council (NRC) of the
National Academy of Sciences.  Eighty percent of all the herbicides used
in the U.S. are sprayed on corn and soybeans, which are used primarily
as feed for cattle.  When consumed by cattle, the chemicals accumulate
in their bodies and are passed onto consumers in finished cuts of
beef.[6]

* Beef ranks second only to tomatoes as the food posing the greatest
cancer risk due to pesticide contamination.  It ranks third of all foods
in insecticide contamination.  Of all food on the market today,
pesticide-tainted beef represents nearly 11 percent of the total cancer
risk to consumers from pesticides, according to the NRC.[7]

* More than 95 percent of all feedlot-raised cattle in the United States
are currently receiving growth-promoting hormones and other
pharmaceuticals, residues of which may be present in finished cuts of
beef.[8]

* In order to speed weight gain, feedlot managers administer
growth-stimulating hormones and feed additives.  Anabolic steroids, in
the form of small time-release pellets, are implanted in the animals'
ears.  The hormones slowly seep into the bloodstream, increasing hormone
levels by two to five times.  Cattle are given estradiol, testosterone,
and progesterone.[9]

* In 1988, more than 15 million pounds of antibiotics were used as feed
additives for livestock in the United States.  The drugs were used to
promote growth and fight the diseases which run rampant in cramped,
contaminated pens and feedlots.  While the cattle industry claims that
it has discontinued the widespread use of antibiotics in cattle feed,
antibiotics are still being given to dairy cows, which account for 15
percent of all beef consumed in the United States.  Antibiotic residues
often show up in the meat people consume, making the human population
increasingly vulnerable to more virulent strains of disease-causing
bacteria.[10]

* Veal calves are so sick that antibiotics and other drugs are routinely
used to keep many of them alive until slaughter.  Contrary to veal
industry claims, no drugs have been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug
Administration for use in formula-fed veal calves.  Some of the drugs
used routinely, such as sulfamethazine, are carcinogenic.  Drug
residues are often present in veal purchased by consumers.[11]

* In a 1985 report, the National Academy of Sciences announced that
current federal meat inspection procedures are inadequate to protect the
public from meat-related diseases, and recommended ameliorative steps
which have never been adopted.  Instead, the U.S. Department of
Agriculture (USDA), working with the meat-packing industry, developed a
new, experimental inspection system -- the Streamlined Inspection System
(SIS) -- the goal of which is to increase online meat production by up
to 40 percent.[12]

* The SIS virtually eliminates the role of the federal meat inspector by
placing responsibility for carcass inspection on packing house
employees.  Federal meat inspectors no longer inspect every carcass on
the production line; instead, they examine less than one percent of the
carcasses.[13]

* Under the SIS, thousands of carcasses with pneumonia, measles, and
other diseases, peritonitis, abcesses, fecal and insect contamination,
and contaminated heads (called "puke heads" because they are filled with
rumen content) are passing through inspection on their way to dinner
tables across the country.[14]

* In 1990, federal meat inspectors from across the country flooded the
USDA with affidavits describing major problems throughout the new SIS
system.  Recently, USDA inspectors sent a letter to the National Academy
of Sciences raising concerns about the wholesomeness of the U.S. beef
supply.[15]

* Recent discoveries have suggested a possible link between new cattle
diseases and disease in humans.  Bovine leukemia virus (BLV), an
insect-borne retrovirus that causes malignancy in cattle and which can
be found in 20 percent of cattle and 60 percent of herds in the United
States, is suspected of having a causal link to some forms of human
leukemia.  BLV antibodies have been found in human leukemia patients and
BLV has infected human cells in vitro.[16]

* Bovine immunodeficiency virus (BIV), which was discovered to be
widespread in American cattle herds in the 1980s, genetically resembles
the human HIV (AIDS) virus and, like the AIDS virus in humans, is
believed to suppress the immune systems of cattle, making them
susceptible to a wide range of diseases and infections.  Scientists have
successfully infected human cells with BIV, and at least one study
suggested that BIV "may play a role in either malignant or slow viruses
in man."  In 1991, the USDA stated that it does not yet know "whether
exposure to BIV proteins causes human sera to... become HIV
positive."[17]

* The beef packing industry has the second highest rate of injury in
American industry -- three times the national average.  Injury rates in
some plants exceed 85 percent, according to the Occupational Safety and
Health Administration.[18]


FOOTNOTES

[1] Surgeon General's Report on Nutrition and Health, U.S. Dept. of
Health and Human Servies, 1988, Pub. no. 88-50210.

[2] George A Bray, "Overweight is Risking Fate..." in Richard J. Wurtman
and Judith Wurtman, eds. _Human Obesity, Annals of the New York Academy
of Sciences_ 490 (1987), 21; Gina Kolata, "Animal Fat is Tied To Colon
Cancer," _New York Times_, December 13, 1990; Walter Willett et al.,
"Relationship of Meat, Fat, and Fiber Intake to the Risk of Colon Cancer
in Prospective Study Among Women," _New England Journal of Medicine_,
333:24 (1990), 1664; J. Raloff, "Breast Cancer Rise: Due to Dietary
Fat?" _Science News_, April 21, 1990, 245; Ibid., 302; Geoffrey Howe et
al., "A Cohort Study of Fat Intake and the Risk of Breast Cancer,"
_Journal of National Cancer Institute_, 85:5 (March 6, 1991).

[3] Jane E. Brody, "Huge Study of Diet Indicts Fat and Meat," _New York
Times_, may 8, 1990, C1.

[4] Nanci Hellmich, "In Healthful Living, East Beats West," _USA Today_,
June 6, 1990; Anne Simon Moffat, "China: A Living Lab for Epidemiology,"
_Science_ 248, May 4, 1990, 554.

[5] Quoted in Dorothy Mayes, "3 Ounces Per Day," _Beef_, April 1989, 34;
Quoted in K. A. Fackelman, "Health Groups find Consensus on Fat in
Diet," _Science News_ 137, March 3, 1990, 132.

[6] National Research Council, Board on Agriculture, _Alternative
Agriculture_, 44; National Research Council, Board on Agriculture,
_Regulating Pesticides in Food_, 78, Table 3-20 to 22.

[7] National Research Council, Board on Agriculture, _Regulating
Pesticides in Food_, 78-80, Tables 3-20 to 22.

[8] Fred Kuchler et al. "Regulating Food Safety: The Case of Animal
Growth Hormones," _National Food Review_, July-December 1989, 26.

[9] Jim Mason and Peter Singer, _Animal Factories_ (New York, NY:
Harmony Books, 1990), 51; Jeannine Kenney and Dick Fallert, "Livestock
Hormone in the United States," _National Food Review_, July - September
1989, 22-23.

[10] Mason and Singer, _Animal Factories_, 70, 83-84; FDA Veterinarian,
"Antibiotics in Animal Feeds Risk Assessment," May/June 1989.

[11] Mason And Singer, _Animal Factories_, 81-89.

[12] Quoted in commentary from Carol Foreman to Linda Carey, May 15,
1989, U.S. Dept. of Agriculture, Food Safety and Inspection Service,
Public Docket No. 83-008P, 53 Federal Register 48262, November 30, 1988,
Public Comments on Food Safety and Inspection Service Proposed Rule on
Streamlined Inspection System for Meat Safety, 5; Government
Accountability Project, Fact Sheet on Streamlined Inspection System,
August 16, 1989, 1.

[13] Commentary from Bill Detlefsen to Linda Carey, April 23, 1989, USDA
Docket No. 83-008P.

[14] Government Accountability Project, Comments on proposed Rule on
Streamlined Inspection System to Linda Carey, May 15, 1989, USDA Docket
No. 83-008P, 14. Government Accountability Project, Summary, 2;
Commentary, Cockerham to Carey, 9; Commentary from Michael Anderson to
Linda Carey, January 30, 1989, USDA Docket No. 83-008P, 5.

[15] Government Accountability Project, Summary, 1.

[16] Foundation on Economic Trends, Jeremy Rifkin, Petition to USDA,
Center for Disease Control, and NIH on Bovine Immunodeficiency Virus,
August 3, 1987; James Wyngaarden, (NIH) and Bert Hawkins (USDA).  Letter
to Jeremy Rifkin, Foundation on Economic Trends, Washington, D.C.,
September 23, 1987. Foundation on Economic Trends, Bernadine Healy, NIH;
Edward Madigan, USDA, and James Glosser, APHIS, USDA on BIV, BLV and
Retroviruses of American Cattle, Washington, D.C.: Foundation on
Economic Trends, May 31, 1991. Response By Dr. Bernadine Healy, NIH,
July 18, 1991.

[17] Ibid.; Response to Freedom of Information Request of March 18,
1991, to Foundation on Economic Trends, Van Der Maaten, M.J. and C.A.
Whetstone, Bovine Lentivirus, USDA Agricultural Research Service, Ames,
Iowa; Keith Schneider, "AIDS-Like Cow Virus Found at Unexpectedly High
Rate," _New York Times_, June 1, 1991.

[18] A. V. Krebs, _Heading Towards The Last Roundup: The Big Three's
Prime Cut_ (Des Moines, IA: Prairie Rural Fire Action, 1990), 61; Bruce
Ingersoll, "Worker Injuries Highest in Meat Packing," _Los Angeles
Times_, October 18, 1978; Christopher Drew, "Meatpackers Pay the Price,"
_Chicago Tribune_, October 23, 1988, Sec 1.




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