Factory farming worsens livestock disease impacts. In South Korea, millions of
cows and mostly pigs were mass-buried alive nationwide over the winter in an
attempt to stop the spread of a severe outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease that
has upset the industry since November.
Nam Sang-Hyun -
Owner of disease-stricken pig farm (M): I was in the livestock industry for all
these years and now that this happened, I don't know whether I should go on or
quit. Not only me but every livestock raiser feels the same.
VOICE:
Meanwhile, the public feels outraged and regretful about the cruelty of burying
3.5 million pigs and cows alive due to the foot-and-mouth disease, as well as
nearly 80 million more ducks and chickens buried live over the same winter due
to risks of avian flu. Korea Vegetarian Union President Mr. Lee Won-Bok has been
to 15 of the more than 4,000 burial sites scattered across the densely populated
country.
Lee Won-Bok - President, Korea Association for Animal
Protection; vegan (M): The pigs scream, groan and cry out for their lives. I
haven't had any sleep for a month because I was haunted by the screaming sounds.
The slaughtering site is literally a horrible hell itself.
VOICE:
Environmental expert Mr. Lee Hang-Jin, who has stopped eating meat since the
culling or mass-killing, explained some of the pollution risks of the burial
sites on-site.
Lee Hang-Jin - Environmentalist, Korea Federation for
Environmental Movements - Yeoju (M): It smells very bad and strong now. This
part right in front us is leachate stains, that is, overflowed pigs' blood as
they decay. The blood formed puddles here the day before yesterday when I came.
It will be a big problem if the wild animals approach this site and
possibly become infected. And if insects contact the pollutants leaking from
here they are going to spread pollution everywhere.
Park Byung-Sang -
Director, Incheon Ecology Lab (M): As the weather is getting warmer, leachates
will contaminate drinking water, and not only contaminating the water but once
the microscopic organisms spread, we can't handle it
anymore.
VOICE: Experts attribute the outbreak of foot-and-mouth
disease to factory farming. Lee Won-Bok - President, Korea Association for
Animal Protection; vegan (M): 99% of livestock farms in South Korea are run as
factory farms.
Chung In-Kwon, MD - Physician, New Morning United
Internal Medicine Hospital; vegan (M): The reason the foot-and-mouth disease
virus epidemic broke out is that if people consume a lot of meat that demands a
fast supply. Then various antibiotics are used as well as growth hormones to
raise animals quickly.
Lee Hang-Jin - Environmentalist (M): They don't
care about the bad effects and raise animals in concentrated areas. That's the
reason foot-and-mouth disease has become rampant. Personally, I thought to
myself, “Now I've got to stop; I don't want to take other lives in order to
better care for myself; I don't want to take these animal corpses into my
body.”
Park Byung-Sang - Director, Incheon Ecology Lab (M): To
fundamentally get rid of factory farms, the demand should be lessened, then they
will stop.
Chung In-Kwon, MD - Physician; vegan (M): The best and only
way to protect us from terrible diseases and to preserve the Earth so that
coming generations will live on is to go organic vegan.
VOICE:
With sorrow for the millions of pigs and cows who grievously suffered and
perished, we thank the South Korean experts working to raise awareness of the
root cause of these problems to prevent their recurrence. May we all switch to
the life-affirming and sanitary organic vegan lifestyle to end all animals'
suffering as well as our own.
In response to this updated report, Supreme Master Ching Hai expressed her
intolerable pain: "Watching all this incomprehensible barbarous cruelty, I felt
like my heart exploded... I screamed from anguish and sorrow, still crying after
many days and nights... On my knees, I prayed, 'Dear Heavens to please forgive
humans
so that they will not have to experience the same horrendous
treatment as those innocent animal friends by the law of retribution; and for
humans to stop all hell-like acts, to love all beings and to go vegan.'"
As during a May 2008 videoconference in
South Korea, Supreme Master Ching Hai has often urged for humanity to stop the
destruction of lives and the environment as a way to ease many of our planetary
problems ranging from disease to climate change.
We have been massacring
our co-inhabitant animals, and we have been destroying our environment,
and destroying the water and destroying the air.
So, in order to
solve the problem that we are facing right now, we have to reverse our actions.
We have to be kind to our co-inhabitants. Instead of killing them, massacring
them, sacrificing them, we have to take care of them.
Just become
vegetarian, refuse all the animal products, then nobody will raise animals
anymore, nobody will kill them anymore. Then we stop the physical harmful effect
of animal stock raising.
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5gENmnqAV_SVTEs2_Lczxlw0HXvww?docId=CNG.0f69b85278e292f4cec1b79291e88739.4f1
Extra NewsA study by researchers from the US Department of Agriculture reveals that
allergy seasons in North America have increased by two to four weeks, as rising
temperatures result in longer ragweed pollen seasons.
http://www.ctv.ca/CTVNews/Health/20110222/ragweed-allergy-season-110222/
,
http://www.france24.com/en/20110221-global-warming-means-longer-allergy-seasons-study