Christian leaders link with animal activists

Christian leaders have announced support for the Humane Society of United States, the organization that led the campaign to rid the hog industry of sow gestation crates.

The Christian and HSUS leaders held a news conference in Washington during which the Christians unveiled their position called Every Living Thing.

The Christians have not said anything specific about modern farming practices, but cited Bible passages they want people to consider.

“We understand from Scripture that God has given us all animals into our hand and for food as part of our responsible rule; but as we live in a fallen world and are prone to sin, we also have the capacity and inclination to cause suffering instead of care for animals and to act cruelly towards them,” the statement said.

In a blog post, HSUS Chief Executive Wayne Pacelle said the campaign grew out of a 2011 meeting of faith leaders hosted by HSUS.  

The evangelical statement was drafted by Barrett Duke of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission; Mark Rodgers, principal of the Clapham Group and former chief of staff for Sen. Rick Santorum; and Michael Cromartie, vice president of the Ethics and Public Policy Center, as a result of those initial conversations, Pacelle said.

The Humane Society of  the United States has been focusing attention on retailers, including supermarket and restaurant chains, as an effective tactic to pressure change in livestock and poultry farming practices.

Having achieved widespread victory on the sow gestation crate issue, it is now ramping up its campaign against caged egg-laying hens.

Americans develop camera to spot food poison

Government researchers in California have developed a camera that can detect the poison produced by E. coli 0157:H7.

It does the job just as well as lab equipment that costs 100 times more, says the United States Department of Agriculture’s research station at Albany, California.

The researchers say that it is critical to determine toxin activity of Shiga toxin because although the active form poses a threat to humans, the inactive form is nontoxic.

However, current immunological tests cannot distinguish between the active and inactive form of Shiga toxin.

The WRRC system can distinguish between active and inactive toxins, according to USDA chemist Reuven Rasooly, who developed the system.

It involves a $300 camera and a light-emitting source to biologically determine active toxin.

A fluorometer, which typically is used to detect toxins, costs about $35,000.

PEDv likely entered U.S. via feed

Porcine Epidemic Diarrhea virus likely entered the United States via feed, says the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA).

The virus devastated the U.S. pork industry, wiping out about eight per cent of the hog population. It was the most deadly to newborn piglets, usually killing all of them in farrowing barns.

It also came to Ontario and it was also feed that was the culprit, although this time blood plasma from the United States used in infant-pig formulas.

The USDA believes it was sacks, called totes, that carried feed that were infected and responsible for introducing the virus. The report does not say where the virus originated.

The tote bags were frequently reused prior to the 2013 epidemic and unlikely to have been disinfected in a way that would have eliminated viruses, USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) said in its report.

The agency examined several possible scenarios for how the virus entered the United States, including via pet treats or organic soybeans, but concluded the shipping sacks were the most likely culprit.

Ersatz meat needs fossil fuels

Meat that can be created in a factory setting may be harder on the environment than cattle, pigs, poultry and sheep, according to researchers at Arizona State and Clemson universities.

Cultured, or in vitro, meat made headlines when it was unveiled last year in London.

While the researchers’ calculated that cultured meat would indeed require smaller quantities of feed crops and take up less land than livestock, it would require more energy, likely produced by fossil fuels.

“As a result, the global warming potential for cultured meat is likely to be higher than that of poultry and pork but lower than that of beef,” Carolyn Mattick, Amy Landis and Brad Allenby wrote in an article posted on Slate.com.

The article is part of Future Tense, a collaboration among Arizona State University, New America and Slate, exploring the ways emerging technologies affect society, policy and culture.

The conclusions are speculative, the authors note.

Many factors could change the equations over time, including more efficient ways of generating energy and more efficient feeding protocols.

Also, cultured meat does not also provide the byproducts, such as hides, blood and feathers, on which other products and industries rely.

Recreating those products could also increase the overall energy requirements beyond those currently used in livestock production and slaughter, they say.

Chinese charge 10 in meat scandal

Chinese officials have charged 10 people who worked for OSI Corp. of Aurora, Illinois, in a Chinese plant preparing meats for a number of fast-food restaurant chains, including McDonald’s and Kentucky Fried Chicken.

Shanghai HUSI Food Co. recalled some products that had been made with meat that was found to be expired during a probe by a Chinese television station.

Six employees were arrested in 2014 and the scandal cost OSI the loss of customers and hundreds of layoffs at the plant last fall.

A processing manager was among the 10 people formally charged this week by the Shanghai People’s Protectorate, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal.

Some of the employees charged last year have spent the intervening months in jail as OSI agreed to cooperate with the investigation at the time of the initial charges.