- Joined
- Mar 27, 2011
- Messages
- 16,936
- Reaction score
- 5,316
- Location
- Near the gargoyles
- Website
- www.alessandrakelley.com
"In Quest for More Meat Profits, U.S. Lab Lets Animals Suffer" (Michael Moss, New York Times)
(This main section front page New York Times article from today's paper is behind an online paywall I can't seem to get through. All quotes are hand-typed from my physical newspaper. It's well worth reading if you can reach the article)
Today's New York Times has a front page article of its investigation into a shadowy Nebraska laboratory, the U.S. Meat Animal Research Center, where in a quest to foster food safety, reduce disease, keep American meat ranchers competitive, and increase the meat supply, thousands upon thousands of animals have suffered illness, pain, and premature death for decades while veterinarians have been sneered at and excluded when they express concerns about the animals' welfare.
The Animal Welfare Act of 1966 has one "gaping exemption: farm animals used in research to benefit agriculture."
The research center has fought tooth and nail against closing that exemption even as other research centers and universities have sought out independent oversight and joined organizations that ensure reasonable wellbeing of research animals.
The article details the experiments, which are beyond grim, revolting, and often reaching into the sadistic.
At the American Meat Science Association meeting in 2013, while other speakers discussing the slaughter of animals focused on producing the least amount of suffering, the Nebraska center speaker focused only on the relationship between using anesthesia and tenderness of meat.
The center remains resistant to any considerations of the animals' welfare or pain. The article ends with a University of Nebraska veterinarian proposing a $3,524 study to measure the stress and pain of castrating sheep and removing their tails.
The center denied her request, saying its only interests in sheep were fighting pneumonia and breeding the "easy care" sheep.
(This main section front page New York Times article from today's paper is behind an online paywall I can't seem to get through. All quotes are hand-typed from my physical newspaper. It's well worth reading if you can reach the article)
Today's New York Times has a front page article of its investigation into a shadowy Nebraska laboratory, the U.S. Meat Animal Research Center, where in a quest to foster food safety, reduce disease, keep American meat ranchers competitive, and increase the meat supply, thousands upon thousands of animals have suffered illness, pain, and premature death for decades while veterinarians have been sneered at and excluded when they express concerns about the animals' welfare.
Pigs are having many more piglets -- up to 14, instead of the usual eight -- but hundreds of these newborns, too frail or crowded to move, are being crushed each year when their mothers roll over. Cows, which normally bear one calf at a time, have been retooled to have twins and triplets, which often emerge weakened or deformed, dying in such numbers that even meat producers have been repulsed. (bolding mine)
Then there are the lambs. In an effort to develop "easy care" sheep that can survive without costly shelters or shepherds, ewes are giving birth, unaided, in open fields where newborns are killed by predators, harsh weather and starvation.
...
"It's horrible," one veterinarian said, tossing the remains into a barrel to be dumped in a vast excavation called the dead pit.
The Animal Welfare Act of 1966 has one "gaping exemption: farm animals used in research to benefit agriculture."
The research center has fought tooth and nail against closing that exemption even as other research centers and universities have sought out independent oversight and joined organizations that ensure reasonable wellbeing of research animals.
[T]he center -- built on the site of a World War II-era ammunition depot about two hour's drive southwest of Omaha, and locked behind a security fence -- has become a destination for the kind of high-risk, potentially controversial research that other institutions will not do or are no longer allowed to do.
The article details the experiments, which are beyond grim, revolting, and often reaching into the sadistic.
At the American Meat Science Association meeting in 2013, while other speakers discussing the slaughter of animals focused on producing the least amount of suffering, the Nebraska center speaker focused only on the relationship between using anesthesia and tenderness of meat.
The center remains resistant to any considerations of the animals' welfare or pain. The article ends with a University of Nebraska veterinarian proposing a $3,524 study to measure the stress and pain of castrating sheep and removing their tails.
The center denied her request, saying its only interests in sheep were fighting pneumonia and breeding the "easy care" sheep.
Another reason for the denial: The center said it lacked the expertise to assess the pain felt by animals.