DEAR READERS: Many conscientious consumers of eggs, poultry, dairy products and meat rely on the USDA's Organic Certification (OC) label. The label, on which I worked decades ago, implies some humane standards of care, including access to the outdoors and freedom to engage in instinctual behaviors essential for animals' overall well-being.

On dairy products, the label has been questionable for years. One example: In 2019, according to the USDA's National Agricultural Statistics Service, nine organic-certified, corporate-owned confined animal feeding operations (CAFOs) in Texas produced 1.5 times more "organic" milk than all 530 family-owned organic dairy farms in Wisconsin combined. The latter are being forced out of business by these competitors with mega herds of 10,000 to 20,000 cows.

Now, the validity of the OC label is in even greater jeopardy as Big Ag's factory farmers seek to remove basic humane standards and permit Organic Certification of produce from poultry kept in CAFOs. Specifically, draft regulation currently under consideration would legalize factory farm conditions for organic chicken meat and egg producers. This is an outrage.

Industry watchdog group OrganicEye opposes the legislation. Here is part of a statement, via ChildrensHealthDefense.org:

"OrganicEye is now renewing its call to the USDA to enforce current organic regulations and is urging organic consumers and supporters to appeal to President Biden to intervene and stop this latest 'giveaway to corporate lobbyists.' Organic regulations already mandate outdoor access for all livestock, including pasture access for grass-fed cows and other ruminants. Importantly, organically raised animals must, by law, have the opportunity to express their natural instinctual behaviors.

"OrganicEye has created a proxy letter you can download from its website (organiceye.org). Simply print it out, sign it, add any personal comments on the back, and mail it to OrganicEye. They will deliver the letters to President Biden's office."

URGENT APPEAL TO HELP ANIMALS IN FLOOD DISASTER

DEAR DR. FOX: We are appealing to your readers to send us funds to help with the flood disaster in our animal refuge, Sorriso di San Francesco (close to Assisi, Italy).

A supply bridge -- vital for the care of our animals -- connects our main building with our dogs, horses, donkeys, sheep, goats, pigs and cats on the other side of the river in the valley. This bridge was torn away with impetuous water force. The reconstruction of the supply bridge is urgent. According to initial estimates, this will cost 130,000 euros. The fence and stables must also be reconstructed, and the bank stabilized.

The reconstruction will demand a lot from us, and I sincerely hope that we will be able to shoulder this in addition to our already overwhelming responsibility for our animal residents. For details, please go to: pro-animale.de/flood-disaster-in-assisi/?lang=en. -- Natascha and Johanna Wothke, Pro Animale, Schweinfurt, Germany

DEAR N.W. AND J.W.: You have my sympathy and respect for the many years of dedication your organization has put in, helping animals from Ireland to Turkey -- and most recently, rescuing animals in Ukraine, including those from the war-caused flooding.

Now your beautiful sanctuary near Assisi, which I saw at its beginnings, is a victim of climate change. All who can pitch in to help must do so.

TYSON'S CHICKEN BACK ON ANTIBIOTICS

Tyson-branded chicken with labels stating that no antibiotics were used in production will begin using a different label -- "no antibiotics important to human medicine" -- by the end of this year. That standard, recognized by the USDA and the World Health Organization, allows for the use of antibiotics that are "not crucial to the treatment of human diseases." (Full story: CNN, July 3)

In my professional opinion, while antibiotics are needed to control some diseases in these stressed and overcrowded poultry factories, the fact that antibiotics are also used in farmed animals to boost productivity should be noted, too. Antibiotic residues in contaminated chicken, even after chlorine treatment, are an issue for companion animals whose manufactured pet foods include commercial chicken parts and discards.

(Send all mail to animaldocfox@gmail.com or to Dr. Michael Fox in care of Andrews McMeel Syndication, 1130 Walnut St., Kansas City, MO 64106. The volume of mail received prohibits personal replies, but questions and comments of general interest will be discussed in future columns.

Visit Dr. Fox’s website at DrFoxOneHealth.com.)

DEAR DR. FOX: In your recent column, I read the story of a cat that continued to do a "fandango" at the foot of her owners' bed after she passed. We have a similar story.

Our Great Dane, Miley, lived to be 11 years old. Three days after her 11th birthday, it was necessary to end her life. She had developed a mass in her abdomen several months prior, and it became apparent that she was ready to move on. Our vet came to the house, and in the most dignified and humane way, allowed our girl to go to sleep peacefully.

Miley was a brindle weighing in at about 120 pounds with quite a nice set of jowls and some rather large floppy ears. After a nap, she would rise, do a "dog down" stretch with her front legs and then stretch her back legs individually. Then to get her ears and jowls JUST RIGHT, she would shake her head violently, making the most unique sound: flap, flap, flap, flap.

The day she died, my husband and I sobbed nonstop from noon until 8 p.m. We finally went into our silent kitchen, me sitting on a stool at the counter and he standing against a wall. Neither of us spoke. It was as quiet as a tomb. Then out of nowhere, we heard FLAP, FLAP, FLAP, FLAP. We looked at each other and each said, "Did you hear that?" My husband and I are both well-educated professionals who don't delve into hocus-pocus nonsense, but we do acknowledge facts when we hear them.

Miley has now been gone two years, and she has only paid us the one visit. There will never be another Miley. She truly was our best friend. -- D.M., Bonita Springs, Florida

DEAR DR. FOX: This is in response to one of your recent columns: I had a similar experience with our precious cat, Gracie. She was with my wife and me for a little over 18 years. We rescued her as a kitten from the middle of a heavily trafficked street.

We loved her dearly, and she returned that love many times over. My wife said she had chosen me, and I guess she was right, since Gracie chose to be with me wherever I was in the house. When she passed away last November, our hearts were broken.

For days after that, I could be in my recliner and feel her jumping on the arm of the chair. The most interesting thing was at night when I was in bed: I could feel her jump on the bed, as she would do in life, and walk over to curl up between my feet for the night. This happened several nights before it stopped.

I have no answer for this. Perhaps it's just in our minds because we don't want to let go, but we were comforted by her several visits. I'm sure God knows how much any pet is missed, and this helps with the pain of loss. -- W.S., Archdale, North Carolina

DEAR D.M. AND W.S.: Many readers will appreciate you sharing these after-life experiences with your animal companions. D.M., the fact that there was a second witness in your case, namely your husband, helps debunk the notion that grief can cause semi-hallucinatory states and trigger conditioned memories of the deceased.

Over the many years that I have been writing this column, I have received many accounts of after-life manifestations of companion animals. Even living animals who shared the home with the deceased pet have responded to such visitations, as documented in my books "Dog Body, Dog Mind" and "Cat Body, Cat Mind."

With hearts and minds more open to animals and the world around us, we may indeed experience the miraculous and discover the power of love. This is evident in the many animals who know when their owners are coming home and engage in remote sensing.

All things in our lives change, but there is one illuminating thread connecting everything: This is love, in all its myriad manifestations -- from the molecular to the emergence of consciousness, to empathy and beyond. As my friend the late Father Thomas Berry famously asserted, "The universe is a communion of subjects, not a collection of objects."

(Send all mail to animaldocfox@gmail.com or to Dr. Michael Fox in care of Andrews McMeel Syndication, 1130 Walnut St., Kansas City, MO 64106. The volume of mail received prohibits personal replies, but questions and comments of general interest will be discussed in future columns.

Visit Dr. Fox’s website at DrFoxOneHealth.com.)

DEAR READERS: In June, France's President Emmanuel Macron held a Summit for a New Global Financial Pact in Paris. The event aimed to find financial solutions to interlinked global crises such as climate change and poverty. The summit brought together more than 50 heads of state, along with world finance officials and activists.

These crises would undoubtedly benefit from curtailing population growth through more effective family planning -- a topic I was stunned that Macron made no mention of, in his June 25 interview with CNN's Fareed Zakaria. The expanding human and farmed animal biomass is a major contributor to climate change, poverty and loss of biodiversity. Clearly, for political and other reasons, discussing the overpopulation of people and farmed animals is off the agenda. But it should not be.

All should look at the numbers:

-- The United Nations has projected that the world population, 8 billion as of 2023, would peak at about 10.4 billion around the year 2086.

-- Globally, an estimated 70 billion farm animals are reared for food each year, and about two-thirds of them are reared on factory farms.

-- There are some 900 million dogs across the world, almost 85% being free-range.

-- As of 2021, the number of owned cats in the world was estimated to be 220 million, while the number of stray cats was estimated to be 480 million.

-- Monitored populations of vertebrates (mammals, birds, amphibians, reptiles and fish) have seen a devastating 69% drop on average since 1970, according to World Wildlife Fund's Living Planet Report 2022.

Larger families and expanding communities need more livestock and land for grazing and for food and cash crops, further harming wildlife and reducing biodiversity, now all imperiled by climate change. Decades before the burning of fossil fuels became a major factor in climate change, I witnessed the devastating ecological consequences of livestock overgrazing, corporate plantations and deforestation for firewood in Kenya, Tanzania and India.

Scientists have documented five prior mass extinctions of life on planet Earth, and are ringing alarm bells about the sixth extinction event, which is now gaining momentum. This is not alarmist eco-panic, but reality -- one being reported worldwide and experienced by communities in the form of increasingly severe and frequent extreme climatic events.

For more details and potential short- and long-term solutions, see my post: drfoxonehealth.com/post/the-anthropocene-extinction-crisis.

Whatever political will can be mustered internationally should give equal priority to social justice, economic justice, animal rights and environmental justice. The courts must recognize crimes against nature as they do crimes against humanity.

Economist and environmental activist Paul Hawken opined: "At present we are stealing the future, selling it in the present, and calling it gross domestic product. We can just as easily have an economy that is based on healing the future instead of stealing it. We can either create assets for the future or take the assets of the future. One is called restoration and the other exploitation. And whenever we exploit the Earth, we exploit people and cause untold suffering. Working for the Earth is not a way to get rich, it is a way to be rich."

The fundamentally spiritual and ethical roots of this existential crisis need to be recognized. Until we have respect for all life and apply the golden rule to all our relationships, human and nonhuman, chaos and suffering will continue and intensify.

LEARNING MORE ABOUT THE GLOBAL ONE HEALTH INITIATIVE

DEAR DR. FOX: Some of your readers, especially veterinarians, health care professionals, environmentalists and conservationists, will be interested in a piece appearing in the June edition of the World Medical Journal, the official journal of The World Medical Association, Inc.

"One Medicine-One Health: An Historic Perspective" begins on page 18 of the document (wma.net/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/WMJ_2023_02_final.pdf). -- Bruce Kaplan, DVM; Sarasota, Florida; content manager/editor, OneHealthInitiative.com

DEAR B.K.: Many thanks for giving us these educational and inspiring connections to this global movement. It must become part of public policy for every nation.

(Send all mail to animaldocfox@gmail.com or to Dr. Michael Fox in care of Andrews McMeel Syndication, 1130 Walnut St., Kansas City, MO 64106. The volume of mail received prohibits personal replies, but questions and comments of general interest will be discussed in future columns.

Visit Dr. Fox’s website at DrFoxOneHealth.com.)