The Wingham Advance-Times, 1985-05-08, Page 241
0
Page 8A—Crossroads—May 8, 1985
IL GORDON
GREEN
One summer Sunday about
15 years ago I had an un-
expected visit from a dis-
tinguished Montreal pro-
-fessor. "Those odd-looking
cattle of yours," he said,
"every time I drive by I have
to slow down to look at them.
Beef cattle of some sort, I
take it?"
I told him proudly that
these were Belted Gallo -
ways, and I was a bit crest-
fallen when he had so little to
say about the shaggy beauty
of this rare breed.
"You never seem to pen
these critters up."
I told him our cattle were
never penned, never
stabled;, that they grazed
wherever and whenever
there was grass and for the,
lean months they ate the hay
we threw out for them.
'And no grain full of anti-
biotics?"
No, I assured him, no grain
and no antibiotics from the
time they're born until they
leave the place.
"And when do they leave
the place?"
Except for the brood cows,
I explained, the calves were
sold at weaning time in the
fall when they would weigh
400 pounds or more.
"Let me know when you
have one to sell," my visitor
said. "Used to be we kept our
deep freeze full of beef. Only.
lately, well we've decided
that we're not going to buy
any more beef that's come
from a feedlot . . I don't
think we're particularly
queasy at our house, but
frankly the more we learn
about all these anti-biotic-
laced"feed additives most of
the feedlot men are depend-
ing on these days, the more
nervous we get ... But now
with beef raised naturally
like yours semi to be ... ."
I filled my visitor's deep
freezer that fall and for
every fall 'thereafter till he
lefttown. Over the years I've
filled a lot of other deep
freezers too, and if I were to
advertise I think I could sell
every calf I raise that way.:
Not because the meat tastes
better than feedlot beef. It
doesn't mature enough.
True, the roasts are delec-
table but the steaks are
hardly. as robust as that full-
grown one you bought last
week with your Diners Club
card.
It's just that to an in-
creasing number of the more
studious people, beef grown
the unhurried, old-fashioned
way, on God's thousand hills
is the only beef today that
isn't suspect. But that is no
longer the progressive way
to make beef. Instead*ve are
crowding our predestined
critters into muddy, zoo -
sized pens, giving them as
little hay as possible to de-
liberately shrink their
stomachs, and then when
those man-made stomachs
are able to accept it, feeding
them heavily on a grain
ration of some sort. Plus
anitbiotics.
These antibiotics stave off
the disease invited by the un-
natural conditions of feedlot
management and make the
animal grow faster and more
efficiently. But when they
are in the ration for a year or
more, a few of the bacteria
they are supposed to destroy
in the gut are apt to survive
and to multiply, and so may
be created a new strain of
bacteria over which our
antibiotics have no effect.
And if such a strain should
get into the human animal?
The frightening fact is that
many off our top research
people are convinced that
this has already happened
and the evidence they pre-
sented in 1977 was sufficient
to move the U.S. Food and
Drug Administration to pro-
pose a limiting of the use of
antibiotic containing
livestock feed. Its proposal
was based on its belief that
"the vast majority of
liyestock harbor a predom-
inantly resistant microbial
assemblage ... and there is
some evidence that drug-re-
sistant bacteria of animal
origin are transmitted (to
humans) through the food
chain .. "
The suspicion kept grow-
ing and six, years later the
former FDA commissioner
Jere Goan declared "the in-
discriminate use of ,these
antibiotics in animal feeds
will lead to a major national
crisis in public health . . .
Unless we take action now to
curb the use of these drugs in
the livestock industry, we
will not be able to use them
to treat human diseases in
the future."
That Goyan was not un-
justly apprehensive seems to
have been born out by the
outbreak of a mysterious ill-
ness in South Dakota last
year in which 18 people were
affected and one person died.
And according to a feature
report in the prestigious New
England Journal of Medicine
last September, this out-
break was directly attribut-
able to a strain of Salmonella
which originated in a certain
feedlot.
The curb urged by Goyan
has not yet materialized. The
pharmaceutical , companies
insist that the arguments
aimed at their products are
groundless, and the beef in-
dustry's attitude has so far
been like that of the tobacco
people when the, statistics
about lung cancer began to
pile up. A grim refusal to
believe.
When, in my column of
November 24 last, I made
mention of the South Dakota
epidemic, Charles Gracey of
the Canadian Cattlemen's
Association scolded me
soundly for "inflictingsuch
damage upon the beef in-
dustry with so little re-
search".
Quite a rebuke from a man
who; I think, has long led
cattlemen with rare good
judgment. I sense however
that Gracey is at least con-
cerned about the issue,
which seems more than you
can say for other authorities
in the business. Writing in a
recent issue of "Cattlemen"
magazine, Prof. Larry Mar-
tin of the University of
Guelph warns farmers that
the drop in beef demand will
continue, but he gives as the
reasons for this such factors
as the competition from the
poultry.meats and a growing
indication that the demand
for all meats is declining. No
suggestion that more and
more consumers may be
boycotting the beef counter
simply because what they
have heard and read about
the modern feedlot has left
them angry and nervous.
Meanwhile in Canada's
other magazine for beef men,
"World of Beef" Dr. M. E.
Ensminger who wrote the
text used in agriculture
colleges everywhere has
only this reaction to the
alarms and accusations now
directed at beef andthe
system which produces' it.
Nothing more than myths,
he says.
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