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APHA Scientific Session and Event Listing

Carole Morison, Exec Director, Delmarva Poultry Justice Alliance, 145A Market Street, Pocomoke City, MD 21851, 410-957-9699, dpja@dpja.org and Shawn McKenzie, MPH, Center for a Livable Future, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, 615 N. Wolfe St, Baltimore, MD 21205.

A small number of large corporations now control most of the beef, pork, poultry, and dairy production in the United States. These industries have flourished in an environment of little effective regulation or enforcement that has resulted in serious public health and human rights consequences. By the mid 20th century, labor unions had won improved wages and working conditions for workers in agriculture and meatpacking, but the practice of hiring immigrant and non-union workers has contributed to an erosion of these gains.. In these large, vertically integrated industries limited attention is given to worker safety and health problems associated with air pollution, exposure to pathogens and antibiotic resistant organisms, repetitive motion diseases and industrial accidents. Larger farms are associated with increasing rural poverty. Air, noise and water pollution from industrial animal production operations decrease property values and affect the physical and mental health of people living near them . Often, rural communities are convinced to allow large packing plants or feeding facilities by the promise of new jobs and find themselves ill-prepared for the reality of an influx of new, unskilled workers (that can overwhelm available social services )--or the disposal issues associated with the massive amounts of animal wastes these facilities generate. While low cost production of food animal products is achieved through an industrialized system, it is at the expense of the rights of community members and workers.

Learning Objectives: