The Animal Doctor

DEAR READERS: This the third in a three-part series about the cattle industry’s continuing assaults on wildlands, wildlife and biodiversity, as well as its contributions to climate change and risks to public health.

One hamburger in your local store probably contains meat from abroad as well as from U.S. producers. Beef and soybeans are imported from Amazon forest-destroying Brazil to feed livestock and poultry. Per a story in Tri-State Livestock News, a cattle industry publication, "The U.S. imported a record-breaking amount of fresh beef from Brazil in 2022. In January 2022 alone, imports reached nearly 100 million pounds -- a more than 500% increase relative to the same month a year earlier -- with fresh beef accounting for 83 million pounds, according to USDA." (Read the full story here: tsln.com/news/us-imports-from-brazil-continue.)

Family-owned Minnesota-based multinational Cargill Co. is deeply involved in these extractive activities, as per the appeals from a coalition of several organizations in their report, “A Grain of Truth.” (See burninglegacy.org and stand.earth.)

India, with a population of 1.4 billion people -- of whom an estimated 224.3 million were undernourished in 2019-2021, according to a U.N. report -- is one of the world’s largest exporters of beef (from water buffaloes). About 1.5 million metric tons of Carcass Weight Equivalent (CWE) of beef and veal were exported from India in 2022. (Read more here: drovers.com/news/industry/major-beef-exporters-and-importers-2023.) India is also the world’s third-largest exporter of dairy products. (Read more here: statista.com/statistics/268191/cow-milk-production-worldwide-top-producers.)

Domestic cattle roaming and breeding freely, and thus becoming feral, are an issue in several countries. In India, many of the 5 million stray cattle are discarded males (castrated bullocks used as beasts of burden) or no-longer-productive milk cows. State governments run by the party of Hindu nationalist Prime Minister Narendra Modi have tightened laws to protect cows, making it harder for farmers to sell unproductive cattle for slaughter. (Read more here: nationalgeographic.com/animals/article/india-five-million-stray-cattle-sacred-hindu.) To learn more about the plight of India’s “sacred” cattle, read the book "India’s Animals: Helping the Sacred and the Suffering," which I wrote with my wife, Deanna L. Krantz.

We must move away from beef to safer, more sustainable sources of nutrients, including microbial proteins. (Read more here: "Projected environmental benefits of replacing beef with microbial protein" by Florian Humpenoder, published in Nature, May 2022.)

The social, public health and environmental costs of the entire global beef industry, and associated operations for dairy cows, pigs and poultry, should be ethically unacceptable in any civilized, democratic society.

Cattle are routinely treated with pesticides and other anti-parasite drugs that now pose a significant ecological and environmental concern. Since the 1950s, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has approved several steroid hormone drugs for use in cattle and sheep -- including natural estrogen, progesterone and testosterone, and their synthetic versions -- along with various antibiotics, all in order to boost productivity, consumer risks notwithstanding.

Drugs like Zilmax (now banned in many places over animal well-being issues) and Optaflexx (ractopamine) are given to cattle and other farmed animals to make them leaner. But the animals are chronically stressed by this kind of neuro-psychotropic drug, which makes them hyper-alert. The anti-inflammatory drug diclofenac, widely used until a recent ban, was highly toxic to India’s vultures, who were consuming contaminated cattle remains and were almost exterminated across the subcontinent. China is genetically engineering massively double-muscled cattle and other animals for human consumption.

According to research by the U.N.'s Food and Agriculture Organization, emissions from meat and dairy combined now make up around 14% of all global greenhouse emissions. (Read more here: "Why Is Beef Bad for the Planet?" at sentientmedia.org, and here: "Environmental and land use consequences of replacing milk and beef with plant-based alternatives" by Marcela Porto Costa et al, published in the Journal of Cleaner Production, 2023.)

All of us must change if we are to ever restore the healing connections of One Health for our One Earth. Reducing the billions of farmed animals raised for human consumption will facilitate planetary CPR: conservation, protection and restoration of biodiversity and wildlife. After all, none of the plants we eat can infect us with zoonotic diseases, while the animals we consume most certainly can and do!

To read this three-part series in its entirety, go to: drfoxonehealth.com/admin/#/collections/post/entries/a-beef-about-beef-boycott-long-overdue.

(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: I want to call your attention to a recent article by Trisha Pasricha about letting your dog give you "kisses" on the face. What she writes contradicts what I read in one of your columns not long ago, where you said that it is generally OK. What is your response? -- B.M.V., St. Paul, Minnesota

DEAR B.M.V.: Dr. Trisha Pasricha is the Ask a Doctor columnist for The Washington Post. In the column you reference, she focused on the bacterium Capnocytophaga canimorsus, which she says can be “risky for the elderly, those who consume a lot of alcohol or among those who are immunocompromised.” She then quotes an infectious disease expert, who says that the odds of getting a case of sepsis from this organism are “around the same odds as getting struck by lightning.”

As I emphasize in my post on this subject (drfoxonehealth.com/post/dogs-kisses-licks-and-saliva-that-heals), pet owners should “always wash hands before preparing food and before eating, and wash out pets’ food and water bowls daily. The bowls could contain salmonella, E. coli, campylobacter and listeria from pet foods, which could infect family members. The main source of these harmful bacteria, some of which have evolved resistance to antibiotics, are the meat and poultry ingredients in raw and frozen pet foods (and in batches of contaminated dry kibble).”

Pasricha goes on to stress the importance of rabies vaccinations and of supervising children around dogs to prevent dog-bite injuries. This is all very well, but she then states that dogs should be given "an anti-parasitic medication monthly.” This is ill-advised, since some of these drugs can harm dogs, are an environmental hazard and can affect family members when they are applied to the dog’s skin. Such advice is imprudent in the absence of evidence that treatment is indicated by a veterinarian. Routine monthly treatments may be profitable for the manufacturers and prescribers, but can lead to parasites evolving resistance.

As a matter of medical clarity, humans kissing each other pose more of a health risk, especially from various serious viral infections, than your dog kissing you. (For details, see the study “Viral Diseases Transmissible by Kissing” by Jacobo Limeres Posse, et al, published in Saliva Protection and Transmissible Diseases in 2017.)

TSA: DON’T SEND PETS THROUGH AIRPORT X-RAY MACHINES

Airline passengers traveling with pets should not send their pets through airport X-ray machines at security checkpoints, as doing so needlessly exposes the animal to radiation, according to the Transportation Security Administration. Radiation exposure can cause cancer and other illness, says AVMA Immediate Past President Dr. Lori Teller, and pets being carried in the cabin should be removed from their carrier before the carrier is sent through the X-ray machine. “If you’re concerned that your pet may get freaked out or try to escape (during the security check) you can always ask for a private screening in a quiet room,” Dr. Teller said. (Full story: Houston Chronicle, Sept. 19)

HONEY HEALING HORSES: SAVE THE BEES!

Medical-grade honey applied directly within the synovial cavity was safe and effective in a study involving three horses that had undergone synovial sepsis surgery, veterinarians at Cotts Equine Hospital reported. No adverse effects were observed, and none of the three horses showed signs of lameness after treatment, says equine veterinarian Richard Coomer. (Full story: TheHorse.com, Sept. 19)

For all our sakes, let’s save the bees, decimated by the many diseases and pesticide poisoning we have brought upon them.

(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: This is Part 2 of a planned three-part series on the harms of the cattle industry.

The contributions of the U.S. beef industry to the climate crisis have been well documented, as well as the health risks of high beef consumption. Yet the cattle industry continues to be heavily subsidized with public funds, the termination of which many analysts are now calling for. (See the study “Public policies and vested interests preserve the animal farming status quo at the expense of animal product analogs” by Simona Vallone and Eric Lambin, published in One Earth, August 2023.)

According to a fact sheet from the Humane Farming Association (HFA):

“The Livestock Indemnity Program (LIP) is like an insurance policy for livestock producers where the taxpayer pays the premium rather than the livestock producer. When animals die in harsh weather, the producer files a claim with the USDA. Despite the fact that the producer provided no protection from inclement weather and paid no premium to insure the animals, he or she collects compensation for the dead animals. ...

"Figures obtained under the Freedom of Information Act indicate that between 2013 and 2017, LIP issued payments of $198,877,658 to farmers and ranchers for animal deaths due primarily to weather-related issues. Since that time, says USASpending.gov, another $157,283,183 was paid to producers under LIP. LIP benefits represent misuse of taxpayer dollars and government waste at its most flagrant. ...

"Compensating producers for dead livestock without ever requiring adequate shelter, shade, or other safeguards is actually a disincentive to farmers and ranchers to take the necessary steps to provide their animals with protections from inclement weather.” (To read the full document, visit HFA-LIP-fact-sheet.pdf.)

To top this off, a vast tonnage of discarded animal parts unfit for human consumption -- notably the remains designated “4-D” from dead, dying, debilitated and/or diseased animals at the processing plants -- is profitably recycled into pig and poultry feed and pet foods.

This subsidization results in artificially low prices for beef and other animal products. According to one review from the American Institute for Economic Research, "The United States federal government spends $38 billion every year subsidizing the meat and dairy industries. Research from 2015 shows this subsidization reduces the price of Big Macs from $13 to $5, and the price of a pound of hamburger meat from $30 to the $5 we see today." (See aier.org/article/the-true-cost-of-a-hamburger.)

Our historical consumption of meat does not justify the present quantity and frequency of same. Raising an animal for consumption, or tracking and killing one to eat, are practices that are generations removed from most people in the world. Rather, most people have others kill and dismember the animals they will eventually eat. This is done in slaughtering facilities where there is much animal terror and mishandling, and, especially in the U.S., unsafe conditions for workers, many of whom are immigrants. (See the 2006 book “Slaughterhouse, The Shocking Story of Greed, Neglect, and Inhumane Treatment Inside the U.S. Meat Industry” by Gail Eisnitz.)

U.K. UNIVERSITIES URGED TO GO VEGAN

Hundreds of academics, politicians and health care and veterinary professionals have signed an open letter urging U.K. universities to switch to 100% plant-based meals. The full letter is available at bit.ly/3Rk9nvE.

I wish all such institutions in the U.S. would start a similar campaign to help shrink our carbon footprint, improve our health and reduce the suffering of billions of animals destined for human consumption.

DEAR DR. FOX: I noticed that one of your recent columns referenced an outdated stat -- specifically, that the global plant-based meat market was predicted to grow to $15.8 billion by 2028. Based on our most recent data, this figure has been updated, and the global plant-based meat market is now expected to reach $18.41 billion by 2030.

For your reference, and to verify the new statistics, please visit our page: worldanimalfoundation.org/advocate/how-many-vegans-are-in-the-world. -- Patricia Gomez, World Animal Foundation

DEAR P.G.: I appreciate you sending this update. It is indeed evident that more plant-based dog and cat foods will soon be on the market, leading to documented benefits for these animals and the planet.

(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.)