Upcoming Bioethics Events

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Animal Welfare and Production Agriculture

Clark Wolf, Director of Bioethics, Iowa State University

 
The video images are horrifying by any standard: they show sick and injured animals as they are shocked, struck with a metal pipe, kicked, and rammed with a fork-lift in the effort to make them stand so that they can walk past the USDA examiner on the way to slaughter.   Those that are still unable to rise are dragged away with a chain around a foreleg.  In one image, a forklift operator rams the tines of the forklift into a cow to push her to the edge of the yard.  The Humane Society’s recent undercover video showing terrible abuse of animals at the Westland/Hallmark Meat Company of Chino, California has sparked tremendous controversy about the treatment of animals in the U.S. meat industry, regulations to prevent the inclusion of “downer” animals for human consumption.  They have also resulted in criminal charges for several employees at the Westland/Hallmark plant, and the largest meat recall in U.S. history.  143 million pounds of beef have been recalled as a result of this event.

There is no dispute about the legality or ethics of the treatment shown on the video.  Obviously such cruel treatment is horrific and intolerable.  But there are other ethical concerns raised by this case and its aftermath.  One is the issue of food safety:  meat from the cows in question was destined for human consumption, much of it, apparently, in school lunch programs.  There is concern that so called “downer” animals may be sick, and that their meat may be unfit for consumption.  And there are issues of regulation and enforcement. Are existing regulations sufficient to protect animal welfare and food safety?  If the regulations are adequate, are they effectively enforced?  Most importantly, we need to know whether this is an isolated problem, as industry spokespersons have insisted, or whether there are regular abuses of this kind throughout the industry.  Hallmark officials claim to be as shocked as everyone else, and perhaps they were truly unaware of the activities taking place at their plant.  But representatives from the Humane Society said that the Westland/Hallmark plant was chosen at random.  This would suggest that such practices may be much more widespread than industry representatives would have us believe. 

Bo Reagan, vice president of research for the National Cattleman’s Beef Association, was quoted in the February 18, 2008 New York Times saying that the videos are not representative of the treatment of animals in most U.S. slaughterhouses.  “The welfare of our animals—that’s the heart and soul of our operations.  What happened in this case,” he said, “was that there were some animals that were harvested out of compliance.”  Apparently Reagan believes that people in production agriculture have an adequate incentive to look out for animal welfare simply because their livelihood depends on it.  On this view, there is no need for extra regulation or legislation to protect animal welfare, because the profit motive is sufficient by itself to insure that animals will be well treated.

It is worth considering the extent to which this somewhat extravagant claim is true.  Certainly producers have an economic interest in keeping their stock healthy.  But, as in all economic decisions, there are trade-offs to be made:  in some circumstances the cost associated with appropriate regulation and welfare protection may be compared with the diminution of value that might result if welfare is not protected.  Where the cost exceeds the benefit, the economic motive will no longer be sufficient to protect animal welfare.  And as the recent video indicates, at the point of slaughter, the economic motive to protect animal welfare can diminish to almost nothing, or to less than nothing.  The workers on the video apparently believed that they had no reason to avoid inflicting severe suffering in order to force the animals to stand and walk to the slaughter pen. 

The Westland/Hallmark plant is not the only plant to have received attention because of slaughterhouse practices that violate concern for animal welfare:  several years ago, workers at Agriprocessors in Postville Iowa were filmed employing techniques inconsistent with the requirements of Kosher slaughter, and clearly inconsistent with proper concern for animal welfare.

The Postville case should have been a warning to meatpackers throughout the U.S., but in many respects it is a success story.  The Postville plant acknowledged their fault and changed their practices.  They invited welfare specialist Temple Grandin to review their revised slaughter procedures, and adjusted their practice to fit her recommendations.  We can hope that the Westland/Hallmark plant will accept responsibility and take similar measures, but we should also hope that slaughterhouses throughout the nation will take advance precautions to insure that protections are in place and that workers are appropriately trained.  Protections for animal welfare are not optional or negotiable, and producers should not be at liberty to decide whether it is in their economic interest to protect the welfare of production animals at different points in the production process.  Such protection is categorically required, and those producers that can’t guarantee to provide it should find a different business.

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Bioethics Retreat:  Energy Alternatives for Iowa and the World

May 17, 2008, Iowa State University, Scheman Building.  The 2008 Bioethics Retreat will focus on ethical, scientific, and policy choices involved in the development of energy alternatives, with special attention to biofuels and the active bioeconomy. Sessions will consider the environmental costs and benefits of alternative crops and biofuel production methods, and ethical issues involved in the tradeoffs between food and fuel. Speakers will also consider other energy alternatives (wind, solar, nuclear) and the likelihood that they can mitigate our reliance on fossil fuel sources.

The Bioethics Retreat is free, and open to all participants. However, advance registration is required. Watch the Bioethics Progam Website for further news and registration instructions:  http://www.public.iastate.edu/~ethics/UpcomingEvents.htm

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Bioethics in Brief