Vegan Accusations, Cancer-Causing CAFOs, and the Screw Worm Cometh | Rising Anxieties

Uh, don't forget, we're a podcast. We're on YouTube. Please subscribe, hit like wherever you listen. And, uh, our first story today-- and I actually skipped last week 'cause it was a holiday. Uh, I know, outrageous. And, um, I kind of think I missed the moment when... though maybe it happened in the past week, where, uh, Trump came out with this whole thing about, um, James Talarico, who's running for Senate, of course, as a Democrat in Texas, um, is a vegan, and he clearly meant it as an absolute insult.

And it was kind of taken as an insult. Uh, and, and so, uh, uh, like, I guess we're used to this. And I'm not sure it's a bad thing. Uh, you know, all press is good press. And having the pres- the current President of the United States, like, think you're terrible is not the worst thing in the world. But, um, all right, th- so Plant Based News did a story about it, which, uh, they were actually reporting that Katy Perry had commented on the whole thing, which I'm not sure is that relevant.

But Katy Perry says Trump's vegan spat with Texas Democrat is, quote, "pure Idiocracy". It does bring up the topic of that movie, Idiocracy, which I saw years ago, but everybody's talking about recently 'cause apparently it's come true. Uh, it's a great movie. It's troubling. I mean, it's very funny. Or maybe it was then, but I'm not sure it would be that funny now.

It would just be kind of like a documentary. Anyway, um, US President Donald Trump and Texas Attorney General have repeatedly and falsely claimed that James Talarico is vegan. Uh, you know, I wish James Talarico was vegan, but I guess this proves that maybe it wouldn't be that good for him if he was. All right, so the Texas Attorney General, of course, is Ken Paxton, who's now running for Senate against James Talarico, 'cause he he won the, uh, the primary with, uh, Trump's help.

And, um, and so let's see. Where are these quotes? Trump says Talarico is, quote, "a vegan, and you can't get elected as a vegan in Texas," which could be true. In response, Talarico's campaign team has released a photograph of the politician eating turkey at the 2025 Texas State Fair, which I guess is the kind of thing that gets you elected these days, you know? Eating some poor little turkey.

Um, Paxton said of Talarico, "He's a threat to our very way of life and our values. I mean, he's a vegan who thinks God is non-binary." Oh my God. And that there's actually six biological sexes. Does he really think that? Like, that's a w- that's a new one on me. Um, it's hard to imagine someone more radical than that. It is hard to imagine someone more radical than that. Uh, and, um, all right, so what else? Trump's also said that Talarico has six genders.

Insults to Jesus. I mean, I think if anybody's insulting Jesus, it would be Trump, like, let's face it. Only vegan food, was wearing a mask in 2023 and 2021. I mean, everyone was wearing a mask in 2023, as far as I recall. Well, I guess Trump wasn't. Um, and is-- Well, he was probably, but, you know, on the down low.

And he is a weak, ineffective guy. I... You know, James Talarico is definitely not a weak, ineffective guy. He's actually an excellent politician. You know what? He's short, and in their world, I mean, I don't think-- I don't know whether he's super short, but he's shorter than, like, they are. Uh, and so in th- their world, that's what it, that's what it means to... like, if you're short, you're weak.

These people. These people. All right, so Talarico appeared on the Bulwark podcast. This is just sad 'cause he would ki- you would li- you wanna like him. "I want to say this definitively and categorically, that I deny all accusations of veganism."

Accusations. And, you know, our campaign basically runs on barbecue these days. Uh, you know, uh, I, I mean, I think Talarico's just a meat eater and always has been. I don't know whether he was so adamant about it before, and, um, he's probably right that, that he should now emphasize that. Apparently, there's something in, um, his 2022 campaign that he said at the time his campaign had become a non-meat campaign and was only buying vegan products.

I, I have no idea why he said that. I mean, I guess it was true, but that does not-- I mean, even I could-- I, I am not a political consultant, uh, but even I could tell you that ain't gonna play in Texas. I, I, I, I think that, you know, they should've kept that quiet. Um, but he did get one really great line in. I think this was from a tweet: "I've been eating barbecue since before Ken Paxton's first indictment."

'Cause Ken Paxton is, uh, an extremely compromised, um, candidate. All right. So that's, uh, uh-- Should we be upset about that? Uh, who cares, you know? Like, uh, it's probably a good thing. All press is good press.

All right. Animal activists run into sustainability wall. This is by Jack Hubbard, and it's on Meatingplace.com, where he, he writes the column Free Range Thoughts. He is, um, he's a, i- i- he's, he's a real, uh, you know, activist on the other side. Um, all right. Let's see. He's talking about-- Uh, he makes some excellent points here, and I'm not making a joke. This is, this is, this is a problem. Well, I don't know whether it's a problem. It's just a fact. He's talking about the Better Chicken Commitment, which is, you know, involves all of these, um, where com- where animal advocacy groups are trying to get, um, you know, it's the, the follow-up to the cage-free campaigns.

They're trying to get, uh, chicken murderers to agree to use, um, more sustainable practices. Uh, no, that's exactly what they're not doing. Aw. Uh, to use more humane practices, um, including the use of slower-growing chickens and, um let's see. One restaurant brand reported that their carbon footprint for poultry would double if it transitioned to, quote-unquote, better chicken.

I don't know whether a restaurant brand is a reliable source of carbon footprint, but, you know, it's true that you use slower growing chicken-- The whole factory farming is based on the idea that you can make these animals grow really, really, really, really fast and then kill them. Uh, that's why they're so young when they're, when they're killed.

Uh, so yeah, saves, saves energy, which saves them money, which, you know, all of a sudden, that's the big priority for these people in their, uh, fantasy land, that they wanna save energy. So it would also result in, uh, needing a lot more chickens 'cause the slower they grow, the more of them you need, 'cause you don't wanna h- you don't wanna actually stop eating them or slow down.

Um, which would require millions of acres to grow additional feed, billions of gallons of water, and a way to manage billions of pounds of waste. In a way, uh, you could say that he has just made the case for not eating chicken, but that's not the, the conclusion that they draw from this. Um, so in the UK, outfits like KFC and Popeyes and Nando's, I'm not familiar with Nando's, dropped, uh, their commitment.

How unsurprising. I think we reported on that already. More broadly, he says, this basic truth could provide more opportunities to push back against activist campaigns against modern agriculture, whether they come from the animal rights crowd or others. Yes, it does. Like, like the problem is, is that the industry doesn't work.

It, it doesn't work. Like you can't just fiddle around the edges and try to make it less, uh, inhumane, uh, 'cause that makes it less sustainable. Like the whole thing has to go. S- s- that's the conclusion I'm drawing here. Um, he does point out that price is one reason retailers and restaurants have reconsidered pledges they've made to appease animal activists.

I don't think they made, made pledges to appease us. I, I really think that they-- They're worried. Uh, lack of consumer sentiment is another. That's the bigger one. The average consumer doesn't make purchasing decisions based on the sow housing or chicken genetics of a restaurant supplier. Sadly, I, I think that's mostly almost completely true.

Um, and he concludes by saying the biggest barrier has always been that companies, especially public companies, don't want to deal with the inevitable harassment that comes from saying no to animal rights activists. Well, that's nice to hear. I mean, it is nice to hear that they care. But the news out of the UK shows that armed with a proper framework and safety in numbers, companies are now willing to do just that.

It does kinda say that. But you know, the real point that he's making here is that the industry itself is unsustainable, not that these little tweaks are unsustainable.

Someday somebody's gonna realize that. I don't know. All right, where are we? Let's see, from our friends at Plant Based News, factory farming is already a public health crisis. All right, this is about this new study on cancer risk out of Yale, and it shows that simply living near a factory farm can significantly increase people's risk of developing cancer.

This is probably something we already surmised, but it's really nice to have study in the press. So these researchers from Yale analyzed cancer rates in California, Iowa, and Texas. Long-term study, two decades, um, and they compared counties with the highest concentrations of factory farms to similar areas with fewer CAFOs.

So that sounds pretty reliable, and they found significantly elevated all cancer incidence rates in the states with high exposure counties. They observed positive associations for most cancers, but the really ones that stood out were bladder cancer in California, lung and bronchus cancer... What's bronchus cancer?... in Texas, and colorectal cancer in Iowa. Uh, so yeah. I mean, doesn't surprise me, doesn't surprise you, but I guess it's surprising some people. Uh, what's really sad is that all of you out there, if you live near a factory farm, you're, you're just as screwed as everybody else. Can't save yourself from this one just by behaving yourself.

Uh, why do people think American ag is driven by factory farms? That is the question that Michelle Miller, the Farm Babe, is asking on Ag Daily. This is really crazy 'cause it's accompanied by a picture of a feed lot where these cows are just crammed, crammed in. Um, but she does not like the term factory farm.

I have to say that the, the, the animal protection movement and its allies have two, like, PR coups of enormous value. One is the word factory farm. Uh, they hate that word. They hate that expression, and I just love it, and it's what everybody calls them.

All right, two. The, the other is, um, ag-gag laws. Boy, that was brilliant. Mark Bittman came up with them. Credit where credit is due. Uh, they hate that expression. I was just writing an article about ag-gag laws. Uh, and, and all right, "Spend enough time online," the Farm Babe says, "and you'll notice that a good portion of the internet is convinced," yeah, "that all the food in the US is produced by factory farms."

Well, it is. Well, not food, all of the animal-based food. Comments like, quote, "You can only trust local food because everything else is grown on factory farms." And two, uh, quote, "Food, food in the United States is so bad for you because it's all from a factory farm." She doesn't give sources for these quotes so my guess is, is that she made them up.

But they're kind of, uh... I, I kinda do love them. "They've become normalized," she says, "in online communities as well as across some media outlets." What are online community? What does she mean, like Facebook? The big question is why do so many people think that the majority of agriculture is, quote, "factory farms"?

Uh, maybe because it is? Then she also poi- oh, she points out that one of the reasons for this... And she never differentiates, as they, they do all the time, they love to do this. She never differentiates animal agriculture from agriculture as a whole. I've heard some people call really big, uh, plant-based, you know, like the, the big commodity crop, uh, farms factory farm, but I don't think most people do.

I think factory farms is usually exclusively for, uh, animal, animal ag. Um, "You could be sure," she says, "that groups with prominent names such as PETA, ASPCA, The Humane League, and Farm Sanctuary..." Boy, I, I- it's good to be in that group, isn't it? "... snatched up these keywords years ago." Uh, yeah, I, I'm not sure they have that much, um, that much sway over the, the common parlance, but, but maybe.

I don't know. The first thing she wants you to know is, quote, "There's not really such a thing as a factory farm, at least not in any legal, technical, or ethical sense." Like, what does that have to do... It, like, it's a, it's an expression. It exists in an etymological sense . I mean, you don't have to have a law or a science background or a particular ethical position to have a word mean a wor- what it means.

It's just a word. Well, it's two words, but you know, it's an expression. But not in her... Factory farm is not an officially recognized defin- how many words that you use are officially recognized definitions? Or to- or term to describe any farm, even if the phrase often gets used in reference to CAFOs. That's the word they like.

They like to use CAFOs. They don't like to spell it out, but she does spell it out, concentrated animal feeding operations. But even that is a little like, mm, who, what, who knows what that means? Um, but when you say CAFO, people really don't know what you mean, and that's, that's how they like it. Um, factory farm, it's kinda obvious what you mean, isn't it?

Um, generally... God, it's such a good expression. Thank you, whoever thought it up. Generally, it seems when people are thinking of a so-called factory farm, they're really thinking of a large CAFO. Like, like I own the la- I'm Michelle, and I own the language. Um, a feedlot. No, I, I, I... Do you call feedlots factory farms?

I don't usually. I usually, I usually use the term factory farm for the warehouse things, where the chickens and, like, the pigs are. But I guess a feedlot would fit, you know? I mean, it certainly does. I just generally call them feedlots. Um, or perhaps an agricultural operation that is not family-owned.

Spoiler alert, only 2.7% of US farms are not family-owned, which means that it's not a corporate l- a corporate corporate sector. It is owned by private entities, and those private entities are people, and they have families . And that's what that means. And they're very wealthy, and they're making a shitload of money, and they're making a shitload of shit.

Um, th- th- one of the things she doesn't like about it is the term removes the human element of agriculture. As opposed to CAFO? Uh, uh, what? And that people are so easily swayed by videos, photos, articles . Like, aren't videos, photos, and articles kind of, uh, evidence that might legitimately sway you? Decades ago, everyone had a relative or friend who lived on a farm.

Today, very few people live and work on farms. Yeah, that's the truth. That's the whole point. It's been concentrated into a very small segment of the population, and they're doing bad things, Michelle, that we need to know about. Um, Google Trend results for factory farming and related terms have been on a slow climb over the last four years.

That is very good news. Um, and she also talks about these activist organizations that are specifically designed to influence public perception. Yeah. To push their agenda. Yeah. And agriculture just doesn't have the time, personnel, or financial resources to compete with that. That's hilarious. Yeah, animal agriculture just really ain't making any money, that's for sure.

Um, and you know, it would be... we shouldn't take the farmers away from their hard work to do this. Like, they can hire PR firms. Like, it's so ridiculous. Oh my God, it's so ridiculous. People seem to think that a small farm is, is an inherently good farm and a large farm a bad one. This is definitely not true.

There's much more nuance to it. I totally agree that at least half of that is not true. A large farm, well again, she's not talking just about animal agriculture. I would say a small farm is definitely not inherently a good farm, and a large farm is almost definitely a bad one. So, um, well, definitely. I mean, if it's animal agriculture, they're all bad.

That's kind of my point. People are-- She concludes, "People are becoming increasingly disconnected from agriculture." Gee, I wonder whose fault that is. "While also consuming more online content about their food and farming." My God, online content, how dare they? "Many people don't ever get to see the complexity of agriculture that farmers do."

I wonder why nobody ever gets to tour factory farms, or why there aren't cameras, like, hung in the corners of all the factory farms so we can see how great they are. I wonder why. Why do you think? And it-- she goes on, "It's not because farmers are doing anything wrong." Oh, no, it wouldn't be because of that.

"It's just hard to show what farms actually look like in a world that rewards sensational, new, and simple content and headlines." If you start showing the inside of factory farms, it's gonna be pretty sensational, and you're gonna get plenty of headlines. I can guarantee it.

All right. Screw worm. So this is our, this is our disease of the year, which, you know, kind of nobody knows about yet. But, uh, frequently we're ahead of the game on, um, on diseases, proud to say. Uh, this is from Drovers. USDA... This is your ta- this is one of my your tax money at work articles. USDA opens state-of-the-art livestock insects research laboratory to combat livestock pests. That sounds very general, but it's actually, it's a 52,000 square foot facility in Texas, and it's about screw worm.

Um, it's not about... I think it's completely about screw worm. They're panicked about screw worm. Oh my God, it's very bad. Um, so, uh, I think they didn't have in here how much it cost, which is unfortunate, but I bet it was a shitload of money. And, uh, Brooke Rollins, uh, this our, our illustrious secretary of agriculture said, "We have taken extraordinary actions to keep New World screw worm out of the United States, and this lab will help us accelerate our offensive efforts to drive this pest further away from our borders."

Uh, offensive? Isn't it defensive? I mean, they're always offensive, but not quite in that way. And, uh, yeah, it- screw worm, screw worm is scary. I don't know how, um, effective they are, and one of the things that might bring into question on how effective they are is this article from Drovers. "Inching closer: New World screw worm now 52 miles from the border."

There are 2,000 active cases in Mexico, and new detections are just miles from the Rio Grande. So, you know, I- but we're doing all this work in Mexico as well, uh, but apparently it ain't working. And, um, this is, I should mention, a horrible, horrible thing to happen to an animal. I mean, it is bru- a brutal way to die, and it f- affects the, the young ones, um, the calves.

Um, so the USDA continues to disperse 100 million sterile insects. That's, that's the thing. That's what they do. They send out these sterile insects who then breed with the fertile insects, and so they don't produce any, any new insects. Doesn't seem like it's working, but, you know, maybe it's better than it would be.

Um, all right. So they're dispersing 100 million sterile insects per week in Mexico and along the border, and they're closely evaluating the location and circumstances of each new case. They're just watching them get closer and closer. I mean, basically that's what's going on. As it inches closer, industry leaders urge producers to shift from worry to action.

Yeah, maybe they should do that. Uh, there's all these ways there... You know, you're supposed to keep an eye on your cows, basically. Oy, what a world. What a world.

Uh, and that's it. I- That's all I got this week for Rising Anxieties. Thanks so much for, for being here. Don't forget to subscribe, like, and comment. Tune into our other podcasts, The Hen Report and The Our Hen House Interview, and, uh, thanks so much for being here.