There are three cases of toxoplasmosis, parasites that can infect almost all warm-blooded animals. The first patient died of a primary infection, while the other two were pregnant at the time, one who was closer to delivery, was able to have her baby, while the other was forced to terminate her pregnancy and still experienced further complications. All three patients were encouraged to eat raw horsemeat to promote good health. If one wishes to eat horse meat safely, it is recommended to heat to an internal temperature of about 150 degrees fahrenheit, combined with deep freezing for three days prior to cooking. Parasites are not the end of the trouble involved in consuming horse meat. Many horses in the racing industry are given drugs on a regular basis. Dr. Nicholas Dodman says, "Racehorses are walking pharmacies.” This statement is extremely accurate given the amount of horses that break down on the track that are loaded with painkillers. Racehorses are often injected with phenylbutazone and firocoxib to prevent inflammation, while another drug, clenbuterol, is used to build muscle similar to anabolic steroids. All of these drugs are allowed for use in horses, but they are not intended for use in horses to be food. The most commonly used drug phenylbutazone, or bute, can cause the blood disorder aplastic anemia in children, and is potentially fatal. Both parasites and drugs in horse meat have potentially fatal consequences for those that eat it. The horsemeat industry is not regulated to ensure the safety of consumers. Therefore, it should not be acceptable to continue slaughtering while the lives of humans are at risk.
Despite the negativity associated with horse slaughter, proponents argue for the positive sid...
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...and eventually filtered. This releases pollutants in the ground and water which harms the environment and is potentially hazardous for humans. Horse slaughter is still inhumane, even without the road trip to another country. Horses are naturally nervous creatures, and the slaughter environment will always be extremely stressful to them. Furthermore, while horse meat is in some cases healthier than beef, it still poses health risks to humans through drugs and parasites if not prepared properly. Clearly, the aspects and process of horse slaughter is unfair and not something that should be justified for any animal; therefore horses should be rescued from “kill” buyers and protected from the evils of a slaughter house. Finally, one must keep in mind that Winston Churchill stated that the outside of a horse, not the inside, was good for the inside of a man.
The use of horses for human consumption dates back to the earliest use of animals for human consumption. Horses are used for food in many counties but are also considered inhumane in other countries. In the United States specifically, horsemeat is not the norm for consumed meat. There seems to be a problem that has arisen. It is suspected that horses being slaughtered at horse slaughtering factories are not the most up to date, pain free for the horse, and human as people suspect them to be like beef kill floors. There are many pros and cons to horse slaughter that accompany the pressure groups on each side of horse slaughter. Another big controversy with horse slaughter is the argument of legalizing horse slaughter and what those details will entail in the law.
It is not just the animals who are being treated wrongly. The workers are vulnerable and suffer from injuries on a daily basis. This workforce requires so much protection, such as chainmail outfits to protect themselves from tools. From cuts, sprains, to amputations, “ The injury rate in a slaughterhouse is about three times higher than the rate in a typical American factory.” (238). Many immigrants come to the states, some illegally. Companies give their supervisors bonuses when they have little reported injuries as a reward for a spectacular job. Regardless, these supervisors do not make attempts to make the work environment safer. They threaten the employees with their jobs. They will put injured employees on easier shifts to heal so it will not look suspicious as to why they are in pain. Next to failing to report injuries, women in the slaughterhouses suffer from sexual assault. Male coworkers pressure women into dating and sex. Reported cases include men using animal parts on them in an explicit manner, making work another kind of nightmare. All this corruption and lack of respect for workers is all for a cheap meal people buy when they have the
For as long as there have been horse slaughterhouses in the United States, they have been an issue of controversy (Associated Press State and Local Wire, 8/7/01). Currently, only two slaughterhouses that produce horse meat intended...
Animals trapped in factory farms are severely abused and tortured from birth to death. Chickens sometimes will be starved for up to 2 weeks and given no water to shock their bodies into moulting, chickens and hens will have their beaks removed to prevent fighting between other animals. Pigs will get their tails cut off to stop other pigs biting them off. These cruel procedures are done to minimise as few of animals dying as possible so more product can be created by the farmer. Within factory farms, animals are abused with overuse of antibiotics to prevent disease and maximise their body growth to create a higher yield of product. According to Animal Rights Action, 2 out of 3 farms are now factory farmed worldwide and factory farming is only increasing this is leading to more animals being raised for slaughter, abused and tortured, mentally and physically. This is not fair. How would you feel losing your child minutes after it's born? As within factory farms, female cows get their calves are taken away from them within minutes they are born never to be seen again. This leaves these poor female cows depressed which causes them to lose weight and because of this are slaughtered as farmers want to maximise their yield of
We brutally inflict pain upon the animals, not exclusively in the final moments as they are being slaughtered, but for the most part, during their entire life. Many animals know nothing other than a life in a dark, crowded barn or factory treated as meat before they are even killed. These terrible conditions blatantly show that we do not care about these animals and we simply rear and kill them in order to satisfy our trivial interests. The cruelty imposed upon these helpless animals is shocking and it is not rare for people to turn a blind eye to the brutality. Another commonplace would be for a meat consumer to say that humans are “ends in themselves, while everything other than a person can only have value for a person” (C. Vlastos). People believe that animals are on this earth simply for human consumption, which can be easily
Temple Grandin once said, “I think using animals for food is an ethical thing to do, but we 've got to do it right. We 've got to give those animals a decent life and we 've got to give them a painless death. We owe the animal respect” (Quotes). This quote is one of the countless quotes by Temple Grandin; after her many years of work in slaughter houses and with animals. Everything that happens to animals by humans must be done in a humane and safe way. Farmers are working every single day to make sure all animal slaughtering is done in the most humane matter. In the United States slaughtering practices have strict regulations and many experts like Temple Grandin are advocating for the animals.
Over the past few decades, small and medium sized farms have been taken over by large-scale factory farms. These farms house billions of animals used for consumption each year. The conditions on factory farms are filthy, overcrowded and disease ridden. Animals forced to live out their lives on these farms are subject to extremely harsh conditions, such as mutilation, confinement and living spaces piled high with feces. Not only do conditions on factory farms make life for livestock absolutely miserable, but factory farms are also negatively impacting human health and the environment. The production and sale of meat has become a billion-dollar industry based upon the bloodshed of other sentient beings. With this being the case, at the very least, factory farms need to be properly regulated and companies involved need to be held accountable for their abuse.
Over two hundred thousand horses are sent to slaughter in the United States or exported to other countries(horse slaughter pros and cons). Horse slaughter is becoming more and more popular in the United States. Equine slaughter is where horses are purchased to be slaughtered for human consumption (Corkery). Horses are sent off to other countries every day for slaughter (“Horse Slaughter Pros and Cons”). Foals, geldings, stallions and mares can be sent to slaughter just because they are unwanted, someone can't afford the horse, or over population in horses (Crabbe 41).
Just as the well being of humans, horses have a right to the same care and respect. We cannot just use them as entertainment. But as you will see, sadly, that is not the case. Approximately 12,000 foals are bread for specifically horse racing each year in England and Ireland. And normally only 50% are acceptable for racing. The rest of the horses are either sent to slaughterhouses, shot, or lead in a life of abuse. *(see down below) Many a cases show horse meat being sold as "beef" or "pork". Many fast food restaurants buy the horse meat because it is a lot cheaper, and consumers can hardly tell the difference between the two. It is illegal to sell horse meat as another type of meat. So it is not just awful, but illegal. Have you ever had horse meat? You could have in your “beef” or “pork” (because they sell horse meat as those in Canada) but let’s hope not, because it is poisonous to humans. The meat we eat day to day could be horse meat, and poisoning our bodies. Moreover, years of inbreeding cause the horses legs to be small and flimsy. Their ankles are the same sizes as humans, and their full bodies weigh more than 1,000 pounds. If they can hardly hold their own weight, how should they be able to hold the weight of their riders? Also,...
The Meat industry treats their workers the same way they treat the animals. They treat these living beings as if they were worthless. Slaughterhouses kill thousands of hogs a day and pack thousands chickens tightly together like a jail-cell. These ani...
America focuses heavily on its livestock and crops earning us a major role in global trade as a farming nation. Unfortunately this has led to some poor choices in treatment of our animals. Many farmers who believe in animal rights say that it started back when farmers only tended to fewer animals, “Ownership of farm animals became concentrated in fewer hands, and flocks and herds grew larger. As a result, the individuality of animals was lost to their owners and they began receding from most people's everyday life” (Namit 29). When people lost their connection to the animals that provided their food, the quality of the animal's lives began to dramatically decrease. Consumers constantly pushed farmers to their limits with high quotas. To keep up with demands agriculturalists turned to some unorthodox practices to keep costs low and still maintain their annual quotas; “To raise efficiency and cut costs, farm animals began to be engineered for abnormally rapid weight gain, fed unnatu...
Can you imagine going through the pain that animals in slaughterhouses went through? Most people don’t think of that part of it but the real fact is that billions of animals went through a painful life to be killed for food every year. Most people like to keep the thought in there heads that these animals live on beautiful green farms where they are treated great and then have a very peaceful death, and never feel any or little pain. Well that is not the case, these animals are treated very unfairly. The animals in slaughterhouses are given a massive amount of antibiotics, hormones, and drugs to keep them alive in conditions that are so bad they would otherwise kill them.
There are many debates around the world about the topic of animal abuse. Animal abuse in the food industry has become a major problem due to the cruel treatment of animals. Most of the world's population might think that animal cruelty is only found in homes and on the street, but they forget about the other forms of animal abuse that affect the food industry. Large contributors to animal abuse are due to fishing methods, animal testing, and slaughterhouses. "Animals have always been a major part of our society in history and they have played huge roles in agriculture" (ASPCA). Factory farming is a system of confining chickens, pigs, and cattle under strictly controlled conditions. Slaughterhouses are places where animals are killed
When these agricultural resources are given to the animals involved in meat production, these resources are lost. Besides the loss of land, the process of animal production is contributing to pollution and other greenhouse gases that are doing irreplaceable damage to the environment and contribute to untold negative health
Ever since the world?s first fast food restaurant started business, it has been responsible for the death of 50 billion animals worldwide each year. It?s an astounding number, yet the slaughtering is still increasing rapidly. The irresistible taste of heaven keeps the cash coming in, and keeps the people addicted. ?Meat is an essential part of our food-chain.? One might say. ?We can?t all live our lives being vegetarians!? It?s true that we can?t stop the butchering of animals. But if you were to witness the horrifying pictures of slaughter houses, you?d think differently. The pigs all have their skin sliced open to revel the organs, while chickens hang with their furless wings flapping. Just because of our selfish needs, we?re treating them with violence and cruelty. It is time for some real action, to correct our mistakes. It was wrong in the first place, to slaughter others for our own benefits. And it would be more so, if we don?t put a stop to it. And because we humans are...