The Benefits of the Ethical Treatment of Livestock Outweigh the Disadvantages

First, I want to say thank you to Envisage for accepting! =) I'm going to address this debate in parts, rather than present all of my major arguments in the first round. I. Health Risks Involved in "Factory Farming" 1. The unhealthful conditions livestock live in compromise the success of medical treatments for people. Many livestock animals live in their filth and feces in confined spaces with little to no lighting or fresh air. Living conditions like these can cause livestock a lot of stress, [1] and stressed animals are known to behave aggressively in response. They may harm other animals and even themselves. Animals have trampled one another because so many other animals are contained within the same space. [2] Because of this, these animals are at serious risk of infection and health issues. Consequently, use of antibiotics on livestock is a popular practice. According to PETA, factory animals are, "Fed drugs to... keep them alive in conditions that could otherwise kill them." [3] "The Food and Drug Administration... put in place a major new policy to phase out the indiscriminate use of antibiotics in cows, pigs and chickens raised for meat, a practice that experts say has endangered human health by fueling the growing epidemic of antibiotic resistance... This is the agency's first serious attempt in decades to curb what experts have long regarded as the systematic overuse of antibiotics..." [4] So why does it matter if livestock get antibiotics? Well, as my source pointed out, the overuse of antibiotics can endanger human health. As bacteria gain resistance to antibiotics, treatments for people will become less successful. This wouldn't just be detrimental to health outcomes for people with a sinus infection, but also for people with serious conditions like pneumonia, post-surgery infections, food poisoning, and Tuberculosis. In other words, a lot of people could die because of increased bacterial resistance through mistreatment of livestock. By providing livestock with better living conditions, the need for antibiotics would drop tremendously. In my fifth source, a speaker even discusses how bacteria could more easily combated through less antibiotic usage. [5] 2. Not minimizing stress experienced by livestock before slaughter increases risk of food contamination. There's a neat little fictional book called "Toxin" that was written by a doctor who worked at Harvard Medical School. In it, he conveys how the rapid slaughter of cows - in an assembly like fashion - truly heightens the stress that cows experience. Upon hearing the loud noises of machinery, cows will defecate. Everywhere. [6] Increasing the risk for contamination via E. Coli and other bacteria. This is supported by a peer-reviewed study: "Contamination of beef products primarily occurs during slaughter when meat is contaminated by fecal material." [7] Apparently, fecal matter contamination isn't just an issue for cows. "Potentially harmful bacteria was found on 97 percent of chicken breasts bought at stores across the United States and tested, according to a new study." "And about half of the chicken samples had at least one type of bacteria that was resistant to three or more classes of antibiotics, the investigators found. The tests on the 316 raw chicken breasts also found that most had bacteria -- such as enterococcus and E. coli -- linked to fecal contamination." [8] Furthermore, "When animals, for example poultry, are slaughtered, the content of the intestines may contaminate the meat with salmonella microbes." [9] Couldn't caution and precision stop this, for the most part, from happening? This would likely require less reliance on factory methods. Even a little further back before slaughter, the transportation livestock receive can have a huge impact on food contamination. The ride to slaughterhouses are often long. The animals are confined and sometimes they're mixed with ill animals. This is not a recipe for healthy animal products. "Barham and colleagues found the average prevalence of Salmonella within feces and on the hides of cattle was 18% and 6%, respectively, before transport. After the animals were loaded onto a vehicle and trucked for 30 to 40 minutes, the levels of Salmonella found in feces increased from 18% to 46%, and the number of animals with contaminated hides escalated from 6% to 89% upon arrival at the slaughter plant. Fecal pathogens on the hide may then end up in the meat supply. Similar results were found in pigs and chickens raised for meat." [10] So is food contamination that serious? Let's take a look: "CDC estimates that each year roughly 1 in 6 Americans (or 48 million people) get sick, 128,000 are hospitalized, and 3,000 die of foodborne diseases." [11] Now, 42% of these illnesses and 44% of these deaths come from meat, poultry, dairy, and eggs - the industries of relevance to this debate. [12] 3. The careless handling and care of livestock allows for further food contamination. Now, if the all of the fecal matter contamination mentioned above wasn't caused by stress before slaughter, then we can fairly assume it's a matter of cleanliness and health concern for the animals throughout the whole raising process. Aside from fecal matter contamination, here's why the handling and care of livestock is important: -Unethically treated animals probably don't receive veterinary care. So sick and diseased livestock can easily be overlooked and mixed in with healthy livestock. They will in turn get passed on to the consumer. As I discussed in my first point, poor conditions already put livestock at risk for sickness and disease. Even for something as simple as egg products, we should be concerned... "Eggs from an infected chicken can also become contaminated." [9] -Machinery and factory equipment can injure livestock, as well as increase the chance of letting sick livestock pass through onto consumers. Take a look at my 13th source to see how massive some factory farms are. [13] If we take a look at my next source, it can be seen how young turkeys get caught on equipment and expose their blood and internal organs to other livestock (WARNING: GRAPHIC FOR SOME VEIWERS). [14] Seeing both of these sources, it can be said that managing the unethically treated livestock can be an overwhelmingly difficult task. Furthermore, what about making sure no sick or diseased animal products get passed along onto the consumer? That might be impossible in some factory farms considering the vastness of the quantity of livestock. [1] http://www.reed.edu... [2] "Forks Over Knives" - film [3] http://www.peta.org... [4] http://www.nytimes.com... [5] https://www.ted.com... [6] "Toxin" by Robin Cook - book [7] http://www.marlerblog.com... [8] http://consumer.healthday.com... [9] http://www.infonet-biovision.org... [10] http://www.hsi.org... [11] http://www.cdc.gov... [12] http://www.cdc.gov... [13] http://www.farmsanctuary.org... [14] - video (MAY BE GRAPHIC FOR SOME PEOPLE)