Big Ag’s Nightmare Trifecta: Screwworm, NEPA Virus, and Antibiotics Gone Wild | Rising Anxieties

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All right. Our first story is from Meating Place. Does this group speak for farmers? This is by Jack Hubbard, who's now their resident commentator basically on the animal rights movement, and he's talking about, um, an advocacy group run by two people who previously worked for the Humane Society of the United States, the nation's largest animal rights group. It has a staff of half a dozen or so. Its major funders, according to public documents, are an animal rights activist billionaire. Hey, could we have more of those please? An environmentalist billionaire and dark money outfits.

You know how much the animal rights movement is pervaded by dark money. Uh, does this sound like a group that has the best interest of farmers in mind? Actually, I would say yeah. The interests of farmers are basically similar to the interests of other people, I would say, well, not really, but if they were, it would definitely have their interests in mind.

He doesn't think so. This is, um, this is Farm Action, and it represents itself as a voice for farmers in Washington DC and I actually haven't heard of Farm Action before. I should know more about it. I'm looking up right now. I'm, I'm supposed to improve this before, uh, uh, I, I was supposed to like figure this out before I, I start recording, but, you know. I kind of was assuming that it, it was part of the Accountability, um, Project, but I actually don't know.

I don't know, says it's in Mexico, Missouri. I did not know there was a Mexico, Missouri. Um, is there a who we are? About our team. We are farmers, researchers, policy experts, and communicators. Angela Huffman, uh, is the president and, um, and Joe Maxwell is the Chief Strategy Officer.

I don't know these people at all, maybe two of them used to work for, um, Humane Society of the United States, but they're not people that I've heard of. So, yeah, it sounds like it's actually about farmers, though it's not according to, uh, to this, uh, particular article, who thinks that, you know, it's just, uh, it's a front for animal rights activism on Capitol Hill. You know, Mexico, Missouri being obviously the, the, the center point of animal rights activism. Um, all right, so it, it's basically trying to fight Prop 12. Um, you know, the ongoing story of Prop 12, the reason they're, they're faking being farmers instead of animal rights activists, according to this guy, is that they know that farmers have more credibility on the hill than a cadre of vegan activists.

Uh, that's probably true, but it shouldn't be true. Um, and, according to this article, they represent a handful of farms that believe they benefit from Prop 12, those with Whole Foods style production systems. And it gives a veneer of credibility to a political agenda that ultimately wants to end all animal agriculture.

Well, that's what I wanna do. I kind of doubt that these people do. Um. And he also contends that that voters in California have, are, are extremely remorseful about having voted for this and only 35% saying they would support the law today. I'd like to see that poll. Uh, but you know, I think it's entirely possible, um, but I'd like to see the poll.

And, uh, he points out, this is really interesting, about half of states have a citizen initiative or referendum process, which, you know, that's my understanding, it's about half, giving wealthy animal rights groups, you know, as opposed to the poverty stricken meat industry, plenty of options for ballot measures targeting animal protein.

In November, an animal rights research group released polling, showing strong public opposition to standard animal husbandry practices in poultry, pork, and beef. The group is encouraging more ballot measures. Well, like if there's strong public opposition to these things, isn't that a reason we should have these laws? I don't get that. I, I mean, I guess he, he knows his audience here, which he thinks is the meat industry. He doesn't know it's us. Um, fortunately, according to him, the Trump administration, yay to the rescue, is trying to put an end to these ballot box shenanigans.

So shenanigans would be like representing the will of the people, apparently. The administra... i, I did not know about this, the administration sued the state of Michigan last week over its law banning the sale of non cage-free eggs at grocery stores. It's interesting because, you know, the Supreme Court has upheld Prop 12, so I wonder what the arguments they're making in that lawsuit.

I'm not saying they don't have any, I mean, I haven't seen it and I, I assume they know about the Supreme Court case, and they're trying to find a way around it. Uh, that'll be interesting to keep an eye on. They will not stop fighting this because it destroys them. It basically destroys them. Uh, all right, that's the big story for the week, which I just delayed looking for, trying to figure out who those people were.

But then I have a bunch of other stories because the thing that, you know, every week I report on diseases because it's diseases that are crazy. I have been reporting for a while on, um, New World Screw Worm, uh, which is in Mexico. And, um, they're, were really, really worried that it's heading to the US because it's, it's carried by flies, so that's bad.

Um. Texas governor declares disaster declaration to prevent New World Screw Worm. And um, so this is Greg Abbott, of course, and he issued a statewide declaration to facilitate assistance to Texas New World Screw Worm response team's efforts in preventing the spread of the flies. And he also said that the state would partner with Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins on the USDA $750 million domestic sterile New World Screw Worm production facility. In case you're worrying about where your tax dollars are going, it's going to produce sterile new world screwworm flies.

Uh, and also if you're in Texas, you have a lot more, you know, your state, a lot of your state taxes are going towards that. So this, this is a statewide disaster declaration. These people are really getting panicked, and so they can fully utilize all state government prevention and response resources.

The resources would be your tax dollars. To prevent the reemergence of this destructive parasite. And they have a, now a New World Screwworm Grand Challenge, which includes plans to distribute a hundred million dollars to projects that enhance fly production. Oh my God. And you can imagine whose hands that money is gonna go into.

Uh, it's gonna be one more boondoggle. All right. There's an, I have another article on screwworm. It doesn't really add that much, but I just, uh, US begins dropping sterile flies in Texas as the new world screwworm inches closer to home. So they're actually throwing these flies out in the world.

So this, yeah, things are coming along here. These flies. This is a very, very bad disease for the cows. The cows of course, will be the ones to suffer. And those sterile flies, who knows what happens to them? USDA will reallocate aircraft and sterile insects to reinforce coverage along the US Mexico border. More of your tax money at work.

We will see. I mean, every week I report on that, and every week it's worse. It's not getting better. Alright. NEPA virus, another disease. Why a deadly outbreak of NEPA virus in India matters to US swine producers. This is the subtitle. This is by Jennifer Shike in, um, Pork Business.

Those last articles were from, let's see, from, also from Pork Business and Meating Place I forgot to mention, I like to mention since I'm talking, I'm quoting them. Um, so although the immediate threat is a public health crisis, the US swine industry is on alert, as entry of this virus into the US could lead to devastating industry losses and a complex zoonotic challenge.

So. All right. Maybe it's just the way she wrote it, but the, the public health crisis is an immediate threat, but that's not the reason the pork industry is worried. Apparently, the pork industry is on alert because we could have industry losses. All right. NEPA virus is apparently pretty serious.

It has a fatality rate significantly higher than COVID-19, and, um, and pigs are a big problem. The, the natural reservoir for NEPA virus is bats, uh, fruit bats. But according to this article, pigs play a critical role as intermediate or amplify hosts. In the 1999 Malaysia outbreak, pigs were the primary drivers of human infection. So yeah.

Uh, you know, just at least it's a little further away than Mexico. It's in India. At least that's where they know it is. And, uh, the infections in the, in the pigs are often silent. They're subclinical, so, you know, they, it wouldn't be obvious that they're sick until like people around 'em start getting sick.

So that's, that's fun. Um, alright, what's next? Antibiotics. So this isn't directly about disease, it's about how the industry helps spread disease in general, um, bacterial disease. This is from Sentient Media. Sales of antibiotics for farm animals jumped 16% FDA data shows. Now, for years, there has been conversation about how the industry has to cut down on the use of, of antibiotics because as, as I'm sure you know, when the antibiotics create a way for the, for the bacteria to, um, what's the word? Change, you know, develop, uh, adapt to, um, to the antibiotics and, and so, uh, they become more and more lethal. And the, the real key is that the antibiotics become useless because the bacteria have adapted to them.

Um, so the more you use, the worse the, the less valuable they are. Um. Alright, so this is a one year increase of 16% in the use of antimicrobials and antibiotics. And, um, it's, it's helping to drive up antibiotic resistant infections in people. And antibiotic resistant infections in people leads to almost 3 million infections and 35,000 deaths a year in the United States alone.

I'm not saying that's all from animals, but you know, pretty big, it's a pretty big problem. They've known this for years. Alright. We're not tracking it as well as we used to, of course. Um, and the rise in sales, that's how they track it, they, how much is sold, suggest that the FDA's plans to curb antibiotic use in farm animals are failing.

That's according to Steven Roach, who is with Food Animal Concerns Trust. And the data from Europe, we don't keep data here in the US on this, so we're using the data from Europe... uh, um, shows that most antibiotic treatments are given to groups of animals to prevent the spread of disease rather than to individuals to treat illness.

Like that was really where the fight was. It wasn't to ban antibiotics in farm animals, it was to use it, not to prevent illness and not to the, the traditional use. Um, which, you know, sounds like it could be back again, is it makes them grow faster for some reason. Um, and, you know, growing faster is what they're supposed to do, so they grow more meat.

Uh, and, but they're still allowed to be used to treat disease, but it's all gets very fuzzy. So, uh, yeah. We lose antibiotics, we're all screwed. Um, this is mostly pigs. It's mostly the pig industry. Alright, from Ag Daily. Stakeholders clash over wording In New Wisconsin Dairy Bill. This is so annoying. Just so annoying.

Alright, there's this bill in Wisconsin that was introduced to help small dairy farmers. I'm not saying I'm in favor of that. I think they should get rid of dairy farming, but that's what the bill was for, because small dairy farmers, of course, everything's being consolidated and small dairy farmers are, are going outta business.

Um, so they, it's low interest loans. Uh, uh, you know, among the things that they would use them for, um, is manure management plans. Create products from manure. I bet that would be, uh, you know, methane. And improve animal health. Uh, and so, um, it's just $20 million for now, but it could grow of course, if the need was, if the need was great.

And the reason the need might be great is because, um, this bill, which was specifically introduced to help small farmers, now the big farmers wanna be part of it. They say we shouldn't just be excluded from it. We can take our size into account in deciding how much we get, but we should get money too. It was specifically designed to protect small farmers.

Oh my God. All right. Let's see. Um, this is from our old friend, Amanda Radke. She, she used to write for one of the publications, I forget which one, but she doesn't anymore. And now she's just kind of a, a i, I like a promoter of of farming in South Dakota. South Dakota property rights rally. She was talking about this rally.

The rally already occurred, but I thought the article was interesting enough to mention. It starts off, this is, this is a gem, for years, landowners in our state have fought long and hard to safeguard our God-given constitutionally protected property rights. God-given. What? God given. That's what they think.

Exactly what page of the Bible is that? I think this is probably a Christian, uh, Christian thing. Um, alright, so this is bill, which passed. You'll be sorry to hear officially eliminating eminent domain for carbon pipelines. Uh, this would be like the ability of the state to require land, which, you know, we're talking about South Dakota, so we're talking about cattle ranches and stuff occupying a lot of the land. So that would allow these carbon pipelines to, um, cross people's land, um, through eminent domain. Now, when I first saw that, I thought, well, carbon pipelines, they sound bad, uh, so maybe this is a good thing. No. Carbon pipelines are the pipelines that are used to sequester carbon so that it doesn't go into the, uh, atmosphere and cause global warming, which they don't just don't care about.

So, yeah, their God-given rights is apparently includes the right to destroy the planet. Uh, and, um, if you believe... this is their, their, their call to action. If you believe landowners deserve a seat at the table, if you believe that no thank you is a full sentence. If you believe in fighting for family farms and ranches. They all have families, can't deny it. If you believe local control and community voices matter. If you believe South Dakota should be made a place where private property is honored and respected...

like what does that even mean? I guess they mean the right to private property. I don't think anybody should own land, but I'm not gonna go into that 'cause 'cause they'll find out.

5 million Pennsylvania hens hit by avian influenza. This is back to our old disease. Um, and I'm not gonna go into any details here, just, you know, it's back.

And, um, finally, HPAI, also about avian influenza, negatively impacts the poultry workforce too. 'Cause they so worry about the poultry workforce. Mental health, this is by Elizabeth Doman in, um, Watt Poultry. Mental health support isn't separate from biosecurity or worker safety, it's fundamental to comprehensive emergency response and operational sustainability.

She talks about, uh, how people talk about the devastating effects of, um, bird flu. Um. They talk about flock losses, market disruptions, and biosecurity protocols, but they... we measure the impact in birds to populated farms affected and economic losses sustained. Depopulated, as they call killing.

Um, but there's another casualty, the people who carry out the depopulation work and live with its aftermath. And I bet it is really, really brutal. I am not denying that I. Um, she's not just worried about the workers, she's also worried about the producers and the veterinarians and the entire rural community.

I'm worried, more worried about the workers, um, and 51% of responders to animal depopulation events report behavioral health issues and, uh, and, uh, I bet it's upsetting. And they, they, well, they , among the things that they're worried about are job uncertainty, income loss, personal infection risk, concerns about personal protective equipment, grueling work hours, so all of those would get anybody down. But the thing she thinks is really, uh, worrying them is something deeper at work.

Now you have to remember, these are people who are working on poultry quote unquote farms, so they're used to raising these birds and then sending off to, you know, snatching 'em up and sending 'em off to be slaughtered, so you wouldn't think that killing them would be... maybe it's worse, but is it really categorically different? But she thinks it is.

Because she thinks that what drew most people to poultry work... I mean, what, let's face it, what draws most people to poultry work is desperation. But she thinks that it's an interest in animal agriculture, pride in producing safe food, satisfaction in raising healthy flocks.

Uh, their daily work revolves around promoting life and health. Their daily work is about raising birds to die at, you know, six weeks. Then HPAI hits, bird flu, and suddenly those same workers must participate in mass depopulation. As opposed to sending them off to mass slaughter. Like, what do they think this is true?

I just am always confused by that. Well, I'm confused by that every, every, every week. Uh, so, you know, things are bad out there. Things are bad here. I didn't talk at all about, uh, the admin, well, I barely mentioned the administration, but you know, that's what most of our anxieties are rising about and awe.

And, and it's hard to sometimes focus solely on what's going on in the industry, when so much is going on in the world. But I tried and, uh, it's bad. It's all bad. I'm sorry. I know you're all, you're all suffering from anxiety fatigue, but here I am. It's what I do. Thanks for joining me today on Rising Anxieties, and thanks for tuning in always. And don't forget to subscribe, like, and comment on your favorite podcatcher or on YouTube. And don't forget to tune into our other podcast, The Hen Report and the Our Hen House interview.

Last Friday's interview was with Wayne Hsiung and Steffen Seitz about Wayne's appeal from his conviction in an open rescue case in Sonoma County. Must listen, really, must listen. This coming Friday, I'm excited, I haven't done this interview yet. Jan Dutkiewicz and Gabriel Rosenberg about their new book Feed the People, uh, which is really good. Really, really good.

Thanks again. Thank you to Vicki Bechler and Jen Reilly for their help with the podcast. And don't forget to follow us and share this episode if you can. Thanks. Bye.