Animal Factory by Kirby David

Author:Kirby, David [Kirby, David]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Published: 2010-03-31T15:00:00+00:00

12

The nation was still in shock and mourning in the weeks following the 9/11 attacks, but that did not stop Rick Dove and Nicolette Hahn from going ahead with their planned whistle-stop tour of the Midwest, explaining the tactics of defending local communities who opposed having an animal factory in their midst. To their amazement, hundreds turned out at every flag-studded stop on the trip, despite the deep sense of loss that permeated each event.

All sorrow aside, the tour began with some uplifting news for Rick and Nicolette. When they arrived in Champaign, Illinois, Rick picked up a voice-mail message on his cell phone. A Waterkeeper staffer had called to say they had just won a major decision in the case against the two Murphy-Brown hog operations.

It was a thirteen-page declaration of victory against Smithfield and its subsidiary. The court was “unpersuaded” by the giant company’s argument that no discharge permits were required at its swine CAFOs. Judge Howard had ruled that the trial could proceed.

Rick was elated. He felt like buying a glass of bubbly for everyone in the airport. “They are dead in the water!” he whooped to his colleagues. “We already proved they violated the CWA by operating without a permit. Now we have to prove at trial that they were also illegally discharging crap into the water.” Each violation could command up to twenty-five thousand dollars in fines per day.

Nicolette was equally thrilled. She had a feeling that Smithfield might want to settle now, given the legal blow it had just sustained. Her intuition was correct. Soon after the decision, Smithfield and Murphy-Brown notified the court that they wanted to move ahead toward hashing out a deal with the triumphant environmentalists.

In the end, it would take four years for the warring parties to reach a final settlement.

By early 2002, the debate over Posilac growth hormone in modern American dairying was growing louder and more vitriolic. Monsanto tried to exercise damage control to protect its battered brand among skeptical Americans. But consumers weren’t buying it. A solid majority told pollsters they wanted to know—at the store—which brands of milk, butter, cheese, and other items in the dairy aisle were from cows given rBGH.1 Most consumers preferred to buy goods marked “rBGH Free.” The furor over labeling laws was brewing, and could prove a nightmare for Monsanto.

Canada and Europe had banned the sale of rBGH milk, and much of the developed world regarded U.S. food rules with bewilderment. More than 30 percent of American herds being milked were injected with Posilac.2 The Canadians and Europeans saw the United States again taking its own probusiness and isolated path: Just as with the Kyoto climate treaty, when it came to artificial growth hormones, the Bush administration would go its own way. But many scientists, foreign and domestic, viewed FDA policy as reckless and grossly unscientific.

Karen Hudson was captivated by this story. She found that Canadian scientists had studied data previously reviewed by the FDA and charged that American regulators ignored

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