Pollution and Public Health in a Shrinking World: Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations as a Paradigm for Emergent Needs in Environmental and Public Health Policy
نویسنده
چکیده
Environmental factors play a major part in human health. Environmental pollutants are often as poisonous to humans as the environment. Presently, much time and energy is dedicated to keeping pollution apart from human society, with varying success. But as global population densities rise, current levels of pollution will become inviable due to public health concerns. An emergent example of this is in the concentration of livestock operations. Recent changes in the structure of U.S. hog farming have resulted in an industry-wide shift from small or medium production farms to high capacity, " concentrated animal feeding operations " (CAFO). These operations have become the subject of intense debate due to air and water pollution, including odor, that can be nuisances or outright public health threats to their communities. In addition, the quantities of animal wastes produced and seasonally sequestered by these operations can be accidentally released via natural processes like floods, often with catastrophic results. Finally, the animals live in conditions of high stress and poor hygiene that are conducive to disease and so most operations therefore feed their animals antibiotics on a regular basis. Recent studies have found increased incidence of antibiotic resistance resulting from this chronic application of antibiotics. Current regulations have failed to resolve these problems, and in 2003 the American Public Health Association issued a call for a moratorium on CAFO construction. The purpose of this paper is to explore economic and legal solutions to this harmful shift in industry structure.
منابع مشابه
Environmental Health Impacts of Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations: Anticipating Hazards—Searching for Solutions
A scientific conference and workshop was held March 2004 in Iowa City, Iowa, that brought together environmental scientists from North America and Europe to address major environmental health issues associated with concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) in large, industrialized livestock production facilities. After one and a half days of plenary sessions, five expert workgroups convene...
متن کاملImpacts of Waste from Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations on Water Quality
Waste from agricultural livestock operations has been a long-standing concern with respect to contamination of water resources, particularly in terms of nutrient pollution. However, the recent growth of concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) presents a greater risk to water quality because of both the increased volume of waste and to contaminants that may be present (e.g., antibiotics a...
متن کاملSmog, Cognition and Real-World Decision-Making
Cognitive functioning is critical as in our daily life a host of real-world complex decisions in high-stakes markets have to be made. The decision-making process can be vulnerable to environmental stressors. Summarizing the growing economic and epidemiologic evidence linking air pollution, cognition performance and real-world decision-making, we first illustrate key physiological and psychologi...
متن کاملChanging the Conversation, Why We Need to Reframe Corruption as a Public Health Issue; Comment on “We Need to Talk About Corruption in Health Systems”
There has been slow progress with finding practical solutions to health systems corruption, a topic that has long languished in policy-makers “too difficult tray.” Efforts to achieve universal health coverage (UHC) provide a new imperative for addressing the long-standing problem of corruption in health systems making fighting corruption at all levels and in all its for...
متن کاملDeterminants of the Public Environmental Issues and Concerns: A Case Study in Rafsanjan, Iran
Introduction: This study aimed to evaluate the most important public environmental issues and concerns, the public knowledge about these issues, as well as the quality of environmental issues in Rafsanjan, Iran. Materials and Methods: In this descriptive-analytical study, 384 people were randomly selected from Rafsanjan City and their public environmental issues and concerns were evaluated. Th...
متن کامل