IATP Hog Report - Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy

Section 2
oxygen for complete fuel combustion. 20,21
http://www.iatp.org/hogreport/sec2.html (4 of 38)2/27/2006 3:50:06 AM
Acute and Chronic Health Hazards, Intensive Livestock
Confinement
Both hog and poultry workers report similar, adverse respiratory health
impacts from the air inside intensive confinement facilities, although it is
thought the problems are more extreme in hog production. 22 Hog factory
workers also report more respiratory problems than workers rearing other
livestock or raising crops. 23 Hog factory workers may spend eight or more
hours a day, five to seven days per week, inside the facilities. 24
Besides gasses, the internal environments of intensive closed-confinement
hog buildings contain dust composed of dander, dried fecal matter, and
feeds. 25 Also present are broken hairs, inflam-matory substances from
bacteria known as bacterial endotoxins, pollen grains, insect parts, fungal
spores, and fine airborne dusts called bioaerosols that contain bacteria,
ammonia, and other toxic or irritating gasses. Breathing this air has led to
losses in workers' lung capacities, occupational asthma, chronic bronchitis,
airway obstruction, and organic toxic dust syndrome. 26
It has been known from experience in Eastern and Western Europe, where
animal production was industrialized over 40 years ago, that the air quality
in intensive confinement buildings is detrimental to the animals and the
health, lives, and working capacity of the employees and farmers working
in them. 27,28 In the intervening years, many of these countries have found
healthier forms of production.
Yet, in the United States, after decades of research on the serious
deficiencies of liquid manure handling, the technology remains essentially
the same. The industry's focus, as well as most land grant universities'
research, has been on ways to control odors from liquid manure not on
critical public health issues or on alternative forms of production. For the
most part, perhaps due to its cheapness for mass livestock production, the
industry and its university partners have clung for dear life to the liquid
manure model. Little institutional effort or money has been put into
investigation and promotion of waste management methods that do not
produce deadly manure gasses in the first place, such as raising hogs and
cattle on pasture or using solid floors and ample bedding in indoor
environments. Millions of dollars have been spent on research to make
liquid manure socially acceptable in a superficial sense. Yet, it is well
known that controlling odor is not the same as safeguarding human and
animal health.
No Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) standard