© 1999 VNN
|
EDITORIAL July 18, 1999 VNN4321 Comment on this story The Other Side Of The "White Mustache" BY ARIJIT DAS EDITORIAL, Jul 18 (VNN) — or What Happens to the Calf? "I realized there's even more suffering in a glass of MILK than in a pound of Meat." says Dr. Francione, Law Professor at Rutgers University. Few people realize cows have to be subjected to pregnancy every year so that MILK, CHEESE, BUTTER, ICE CREAM may be produced. In order to continue producing high volume milk as much as possible, in the modern commercial dairy factory farms cows are constantly kept pregnant. Their babies are dragged away within 1 to 2 days of birth, so that milk can be sold and humans can drink MILK intended for the calves. Giving birth is a prolonged and painful business for the cow, to be rewarded only by separation from her baby. Cows often cry out and search for their calves for days after they are taken away. (*The attachment between the calf and mother is particularly strong). Male calves are sold to feed lots and put into tiny veal crates, fatten and chained to endure 16 weeks of hell in the dark, confined to stalls so small they cannot even make a turn, then slaughtered and sold as 'VEAL' , "BEEF", "HAMBURGER" or "PET FOOD". Female calves follow in their mother's hoofprints, slaughtered when their milk production wanes, usually before their 4th birthday to become hamburger or pet food. Normal healthy cows can live up to 26 years old. The DAIRY industry is inseparable from the cruel exploitation and degradation of helpless, highly intelligent animals. (Note: Witnesses at the auction said numerous calves in the pan , some are sold for $0.50 to $8 per live calf. Their umbilical cord are still attached. They suckle humans hands like puppies.) (SOURCE :1. PETA 2. HUMANE FARMING ASSOCIATION 3. AMERICAN VEGAN SOCIETY 4. witnesses) The following are just some of millions cases regarding the cruelty of the industry . According to one of the Special Reports by Humane Farming Association (1998) : Some of the slaughterhouse workers described : "When a conscious cow arrives at the first hind-legger hanging upside down , usually the legger tries to make a cut to start skinning out the leg. Unfortunately, it is very difficult and dangerous to do that when an animal is kicking violently. So the legger will cut off the bottom part of the animal's leg he's working on with a pair of clippers." (SOURCE: "SLAUGHTERHOUSE", by Gail Eisnitz, 1998) Another report from FARM ("Farm Animal Reform Movement") : " It starts when the animals are hauled long distances under extreme crowding and harsh temperatures. Here is an account from a worker assigned to unloading pigs: "In the winter, some hogs come in all froze to the sides of the trucks. They tie a chain around them and jerk them off the walls of the truck, leave a chunk of hide and flesh behind........Once at the slaughterhouse, some animals are too injured to walk and others simply refuse to go quietly to their deaths. This is how the workers deal with it: "The preferred method of handling a cripple is to beat him to death with a lead pipe before he gets into the chute... If you get a hog in a chute that's had the shit prodded out of him, and has a heart attack or refuses to move, you take a meat hook and hook it into his bunghole (anus)...and a lot of times the meat hook rips out of the bunghole. I've seen thighs completely ripped open. I've also seen intestines come out....." "A lot of times the skinner finds a cow is still conscious when he slices the side of its head and it starts kicking wildly........" ".... Secretary of Agriculture Dan Glickman conceded recently in a interview with C-SPAN Washington Journal that the ENFORCEMENT of the Humane Slaughter Act is almost NON-EXISTENT ! MILK's (Cow's Milk) POLITICAL LINKAGE Dr. Marion Nestle, who served on the USDA panel when the last revisions were made in 1995, said the food industry traditionally has driven the Diet Guidelines. She said in the past the industry has successfully pressed the USDA to modify initial suggestions from the panel (The Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee) that consumers should eat less meat and dairy products.---- Dr. Marion Nestle, a professor and Chairwoman of the Department of Nutrition and Food Studies at New York University. (SOURCE: Chicago Tribune, June 24, 1999, Chicago Sports Final, P. 20). "The National Fluid Milk Processors Promotion Board, a group created by the US Department of Agriculture and financed by the dairy industry. It spends $80 million a year on the milk-mustache ads. "---(Source: "MILK" ,page A01 of the Boston Globe on 06/08/99. ) "FDA Deputy Commissioner Michael Taylor, a former counsel for Monsanto company, wrote confusing guidelines to prohibit milk Hormone labeling to block the consumers the right to know the truth. " (SOURCE: "A needless New Risk of Breast Cancer" by Dr. Samuel Epstein, Chairman of the Cancer Prevention Coalition, Los Angeles Times, Mar 20, 1994) "BGH Hormone is used on dairy cows. BGH manufacturer Monsanto made payments to the American Dietetic Association and the American Medical Association, both of which issued favorable statements about BGH on the same day". (SOURCE: "Good Medicine", "Milk and Breast Cancer" , 1998) CSPI, one of the biggest consumer advocacy groups, is linked to Dairy Industry . It can be seen from the following : " FDA's final rule was prompted in part by a petition filed jointly by the Milk Industry Foundation and the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI), a consumer advocacy group, and a separate petition filed by the American Dairy Products Institute. The petitions asked FDA to lift the labeling exemption provided for in the Nutrition Labeling and Education Act of 1990 for lower fat dairy products. " ("FDA Consumer", Jan 1998). **** Any one can request a huge poster (2' x 2.5') which showed that Secretary of Health Donna Shalala's White Mustache from her public press office. THE HEALTH IMPACT OF MILK (cow's milk). "Americans will not reduce their rates of cancers, cardiovascular diseases and other chronic degenerative diseases until they shift from an animal-based diet to a plant-based diet."--- Dr. T. Colin Campbell, a world renowned Nutritional Biochemist, at Cornell University. "There is a major campaign being planned to try to get adults to drink three glasses of milk every day. That's what the milk mustache campaign wants to do," said Dr. Walter C. Willett, Professor and Chairman of the Department of Nutrition at the Harvard School of Public Health, which has completed a study showing no evidence to support claims that milk and other calcium-rich foods significantly reduce osteoporosis-related bone fractures. "If we do that, we'll increase saturated fat consumption in adults. That inevitably will increase heart attack rates."---( Source: "MILK", page A01 of the Boston Globe on 06/08/1999. ) "Milk" does NOT protect bones fractures. According to new data from the Harvard Nurses Study. The study recruited a group of 77,761 women who were between 34 and 59 years of age when the study began in 1980, and followed them for the next 12 years. (SOURCE: "Good Medicine" by "Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine" , Vol. VI, NO. 4, Fall, 1997, PCRM: http://www.pcrm.org ). "Milk & other Dairy products" contain a substantial amount of protein which can enhance renal calcium losses". ( "Science", Volume 264, P. 535, Apr., 1994). "Growing kids can get the calcium the need from leafy green vegetables, soy milk and beans, rather than from cow's milk and dairy products, which are too high in fat and can aggravate conditions such as asthma and chronic ear infections."----Dr. Benjamin Spock (The last issue of his Baby and Child Care before his death.). "Consumption of Milk was not significantly associated with the risk of Colon Cancer." (***The dairy industry claimed that milk can prevent the risk of colon cancer.) (Source: "Calcium ,vitamin D, and Dairy Foods and the Occurrence of Colon Cancer in Men" by Dr. John Kearney, Dr. Edward Giovannucci, Dr. Eric B. Rimm, Dr. Alberto Ascherio, Dr. Meir Stampfer, DR. Graham Colditz, Dr. Alvin Wing, Dr Ellen Kampman, and Dr. Walter Willett. American Journal of Epidemiology, Vol 143, No. 9, 1996, P. 907) The "American Academy of Pediatrics" concluded exposure to cow's milk protein may indeed be an important factor in the development of children's on-set diabetes, based on the more than NINETY(90) Studies. (Source: "Good Medicine", 1997) "Insulin-dependent diabetes(Type I or child-hood-onset) is linked to dairy products. " (Source: Scott FW. "Cow milk and insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus: Is there a relatinship ?" American Journal of Clinical Nutrition , 1990;51:489-91) "Milk protein causes an immune reaction in diabetic children." (Source: The Lancet) "Studies have shown that breast cancer rates correlate with dairy product consumption." (Source: "Milk and Breast Cancer" from "Good Medicine" , 1998) "Ovarian cancer is linked to dairy products. When dairy product consumption exceeds the enzymes capacity to break down galactose, there is a build-up of galactose in the blood, which may affect a woman's ovaries. Some women have very low levels of these enzymes, and when they consume dairy products on a regular basis, their risk of ovarian cancer can be triple that of other women."----Dr. Daniel Cramer and his colleagues at Harvard. Lancet 1989:2:66-71 (Source : "Good Medicine", PCRM, http://www.pcrm.org ) "A diet free of meat and dairy products will almost completely eliminate the risk of those life-endangering diseases, eg.: heart diseases, strokes, some cancers, diabetes, arthritis, osteoporosis etc." --- Dr Michael Klaper, M.D., Director of "Institute For Nutrition Education & Research". "There is no reason to drink cow's milk at any time. It was designed for calves, it was not designed for humans, and we should all stop drinking it today, this afternoon . ".---Dr. Frank Oski, The Director of Pediatrics at Johns Hopkins University. THE ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT OF MEAT & DAIRY INDUSTRY . If used as direct foods , the US livestock population consumes enough grain to feed more than five (5) times the entire US population." (SOURCE: "Diet for a New America", "EarthSave Foundation".) ð Every year, about 125,000 square miles of rain forest (along with 1,000 plant and animal species) are lost--more than half of it is now used for grazing cattle. (***Vegetarians save an acre of trees every year.) (SOURCE: PETA, http://www.meatstinks.com) ð In an effort to conserve water, you install a water saver on your kitchen faucet, saving up to 6,000 gallons of water per year. Most of those savings will be lost if you consume just one pound of California beef (which requires 5,200 gallons of water per pound to produce). A typical American meat-based diet uses 4,200 gallons of water per person every day. (***While a vegetarian diet uses only 300 gallons a day.) (SOURCE: PETA, http://www.meatstinks.com) ð More than half of the total amount of water consumed in the U.S. is used to irrigate land to grow feed for livestock. (SOURCE: PETA, http://www.meatstinks.com) ð To produce a pound of protein from feedlot beef requires burning 40 times more fossil fuels than to produce a pound of protein from soybeans. (SOURCE: PETA, http://www.meatstinks.com) ð Every second, 125 tons of waste are produced by animals raised by the meat industry. A typical hog factory farm generates raw waste equivalent to that of a city of 12,000 people. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) estimates that almost half of America's surface streams and wells are contaminated by "agricultural pollutants." (SOURCE: PETA, http://www.meatstinks.com) ð Forty-five percent of the total land in this country is used to raise animals for food or for crops to feed these animals. (*** Vegetarians require 1/6 of an acre of land to feed themselves each year; carnivores, 3 and 1/4 acres.) (SOURCE: PETA, http://www.meatstinks.com) ð Of all the raw materials and fossil fuels used in our country, more than 1/3 go toward raising animals for food. (SOURCE: PETA, http://www.meatstinks.com) ð More than 3/4 of U.S. topsoil has been permanently lost; 85 percent of this loss was directly caused by the raising of animals for food.(SOURCE: PETA, www.meatstinks.com) ð Cattle feedlots produce 30-100 million tons of methane gas per year. (SOURCE: PETA, http://www.meatstinks.com) (P.S.: If this Truthful sad note offended you, please forgive us & accept our sincere apology ! If you would like to be removed from us , please just send original email with Remove. Your comments is very much appreciated, thanks) "Our task must be to ...widen our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty."---Albert Einstein Submitted by Arijit das Comment on this story  Contact VNN about this storySend this story to a friend
NEWS DESK | EDITORIALS | TOP |
