Eat Eggs From Sick Mistreated Hens, Expect to Get Sick

by Heidi Stevenson

22 August 2010

Factory-produced eggs are sick eggs. The recent US outbreak of salmonella, with a belated recall of more than half a billion eggs, should surprise no one. Salmonella-laced eggs are commonplace in supermarkets. It isn't that there's a new outbreak, but that the number of salmonella cases has increased.

Factory Production of Eggs

Most of our eggs are produced by sick chickens. They are massively crowded in horrific conditions with no access to fresh air, often not even room enough to take a single step—and they spend their entire lives like this. Chickens normally establish an order by pecking. Existing in these crowded conditions makes it impossible for them to satisfy this need, so they would peck each other to death, except that their beaks are cut off when they're chicks. This mutilation is done by cutting through living, bleeding tissues without any sort of anesthetic.

These birds are pumped full of antibiotics. They produce antibiotic-filled eggs—and obviously, they still produce eggs contaminated with salmonella. One must wonder if the real reason behind the increase in reported salmonella in people is actually a result of a new drug-resistant form.

One of the producers of these sick eggs is Wright County Eggs, owned by Jack DeCoster of Galt, Iowa. The state's attorney general has labeled him a "habitual violator" of environmental laws. He has allowed chicken and hog manure to run directly into a creek. For this, he had to pay a $150,000 fine—hardly enough to even factor in as a cost of doing business on his scale of production.

DeCoster pled guilty to ten counts of animal cruelty for the routine mistreatment of chickens. Mercy for Animals had done an undercover investigation of his "farm". Aside from routinely cruel treatment by employees, they documented hens so crowded that they couldn't lift their wings without getting them snagged in cage wires. Rotting chicken corpses were removed from the cages of hens that were producing eggs sold for human consumption.

If you buy supermarket eggs, this is what you're supporting:

• The institutionalized mistreatment of hens and chicks.
• The massive use of antibiotics in an attempt to kill the natural result of such an environment: disease.
• Your own ingestion of antibiotics.
• The development of drug-resistant bacteria.
• The destruction of the environment, including the poisoning of rivers and oceans.
• The ever-increasing risk that you or your loved ones will succomb to a drug-resistant disease.

Salmonella Is Common, But the FDA Doesn't Care

The FDA reports that the CDC "normally" receives about 50 reports of Salmonella enteritidis (the particular variety, among dozens, in question here) each week. In late June/early July, they started to receive reports of about 200 cases per week, quadruple the so-called "normal" number. Nothing was done about it then.

It wasn't until the 13^th of August that recalls were initiated—well over two months later.

The FDA's supposed concerns for the public's health resulted in the closure of farms that produce raw milk earlier this year—when not a single case of disease could actually be tied to those farms. The disease was listeria, which is relatively minor compared with salmonella.

About 2,600 cases of Salmonella have occurred each year for the last five years, and these cases are all tied to factory farms. The FDA didn't see a problem with that. Then, the number of Salmonella cases quadrupled to about 200 per week, an annual number of 10,400 incidents of serious, life-threatening illness.

The FDA and CDC waited for more than two months before bothering to report it to the public!

What do you want to bet that the purveyors of these sick eggs will be allowed to continue producing them?

The Solution

There is only one solution to this health disaster. People must take responsibility for the source of their food. Stop buying food that comes from unknown sources. Start local buying clubs. Patronize local farmers markets. Grow your own. Buy from a neighbor who does. Insist on knowing the source of your food.

Certainly, it can be difficult to do that now, but if you make this choice, it becomes easier and easier—especially as others start to make the same decision. If you do so, then your neighbors and friends are more likely to, also. You'll probably find that one person you know makes an absolutely fabulous quiche, and would be delighted to bake extras to sell to you and your friends—or perhaps a neighbor has always wanted to raise chickens in her back garden, but was concerned that neighbors might complain. Maybe a neighbor has a couple of apple trees, and another neighbor has grown that zucchini plant that could feed the world.

Unless you want to eat factory-produced food stuff that results in chronic and drug-resistant diseases, then it's past time to take this step. Start with eggs. Discover how a truly fresh egg from a healthy hen tastes, and you won't go back.

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