Meatonomics (41 page)

35
. Ayers and Collinge,
Microeconomics
.

36
. This calculation is shown in
Appendix C
,
table C1
.

37
. Rivera-Ferre, “A Chicken and Egg Paradigm?” 103 (emphasis added).

38
. Ibid.

39
. Ibid., 102.

40
. 170 x 0.65 = 1.1 or 110 percent. Since demand cannot fall by more than 100 percent, this result is reduced to 100 percent.

41
. National Academy of Sciences, “Dietary Reference Intakes,” 425, 549.

42
. Ibid., 441, 542 (emphasis added).

43
. Ibid., 13.

44
. Ibid., 103.

45
. European Food Safety Authority, “Dietary Reference Values for Fats.”

46
. Several of these studies are explained in more detail in
chapter 10
.

47
. Food and Drug Administration, “Guidance for Industry, a Food Labeling Guide” (2011), accessed May 20, 2012 at
http://www.fda.gov
; USDA Economic Research Service, “Retail Food Commodity Intakes: Mean Amounts of Retail Commodities per Individual, 2001–2002” (2011).

48
. Litjen Tan, “Diagnosis and Management of Foodborne Illnesses: A Primer for Physicians and Other Health Care Professionals,”
Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report
53 (2004): 1–33.

49
. Paul S. Mead et al., “Food-Related Illness and Death in the United States,”
Emerging Infectious Diseases
5, no. 5 (1999), accessed November 15, 2011,
http://wwwnc.cdc.gov
.

50
. Eric Schlosser,
Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal
(New York: Houghton Mifflin, 2002), 197.

51
.
Consumer Reports
, “Dirty Birds: Even ‘Premium’ Chickens Harbor Dangerous Bacteria,” January 2007, accessed November 15, 2011,
http://www.usapeec.org
.

52
. Ibid.

53
. USDA Food Safety and Inspection Service, “Nationwide Federal Plant Raw Ground Beef Microbiological Survey” (1996), accessed November 15, 2011,
http://www.fsis.usda.gov
.

54
. US Department of Health and Human Services, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Food and Drug Administration, and US Department of Agriculture, “National Antimicrobial Resistance Monitoring System
(NARMS) 2009 Executive Report” (2009), 92, accessed November 20, 2011,
http://www.fda.gov
.

55
. Ibid.

56
. Associated Press, “Source of Tainted Spinach Finally Pinpointed,”
MSNBC.com
(March 23, 2007), accessed November 13, 2011,
http://www.msnbc.msn.com
.

57
. Bill Tomson, “Antibiotics in Livestock Feed Raises Concerns,”
Wall Street Journal
(May 13, 2011), accessed September 11, 2011,
http://online.wsj.com
.

58
. Animal Health Institute, “Animal Antibiotics: Keeping Animals Healthy and Our Food Safe,” 4, accessed November 15, 2011,
http://www.ahi.org
(emphasis added).

59
. Liggett & Myers Tobacco Company, “Nose, Throat and Accessory Organs Not Adversely Affected by Smoking Chesterfields,” advertisement in
Life Magazine
(December 1, 1952), accessed November 15, 2011,
http://www.vintageadsandstuff.com
.

60
. R. Smither et al., “Antibiotic Residues in Meat in the United Kingdom: An Assessment of Specific Tests to Detect and Identify Antibiotic Residues,”
Journal of Hygiene
85 (1980): 359–69; Joint Expert Advisory Committee on Antibiotic Resistance, Australia, “The Use of Antibiotics in Food-Producing Animals: Antibiotic Resistance in Animals and Humans” (1999), accessed November 15, 2011,
http://www.health.gov.au
; Frederick W. Oehme, “Significance of Chemical Residues in United States Food-Producing Animals,”
Toxicology
1, no. 3 (1973): 205–15.

61
. US Department of Health and Human Services, “NARMS 2009 Executive Report,” 52, 66.

62
. Ibid., 98.

63
. Inge van Loo et al., “Emergence of Methicillin-resistant
Staphylococcus Aureus
of Animal Origin in Humans,”
Emerging Infectious Diseases
13, no. 12 (2007): 1834–39; Andrew E. Waters et al., “Multidrug-Resistant
Staphylococcus Aureus
in U.S. Meat and Poultry,”
Clinical Infectious Diseases
52, no. 10 (2011): 1227–30.

64
. Loo et al., “Emergence of Methicillin-resistant
Staphylococcus Aureus
.”

65
. Waters et al., “Multidrug-Resistant
Staphylococcus Aureus
,” 1228.

66
. S. H. Swan et al., “Semen Quality of Fertile U.S. Males in Relation to Their Mothers' Beef Consumption During Pregnancy,”
Human Reproduction
22, no. 6 (2007): 1497–1502.

67
. Lillian Conde de Borrego, “An Epidemic of Precocious Development in Puerto Rican Children,”
Journal of Pediatrics
107, no. 3 (1985): 393–96; Cornell University, “Consumer Concerns about Hormones in Food” (2000), accessed October 8, 2011,
http://envirocancer.cornell.edu
.

68
. In inflation-adjusted dollars, the US costs related to
E. coli
and salmonella poisoning are $3.4 billion annually. Salmonella costs are $2.7 billion in 2010 dollars, or $2.9 billion in 2012 dollars;
E. coli
costs are $488 million in 2010
dollars, or $518 million in 2012 dollars. $2.9 billion + $518 million = $3.4 billion. While some poisoning cases are related to pathogens transmitted indirectly by vegetables (although, of course, always originating in animals), in the absence of data showing how much of the total is related to animal foods, it's reasonable to estimate that half of the total, or $1.7 billion, is attributable to pathogens transmitted directly by animal foods. USDA Economic Research Service, “Foodborne Illness Cost Calculator” (2012), accessed October 27, 2012,
http://webarchives.cdlib.org
.

69
. US expenses related to antibiotic resistance in humans, including health care costs and lost wages, are estimated at $35 billion in 2000 dollars ($47.2 billion in 2012 dollars). (Rebecca R. Roberts et al., “Hospital and Societal Costs of Antimicrobial-Resistant Infections in a Chicago Teaching Hospital: Implications for Antibiotic Stewardship,”
Clinical Infectious Diseases
49, no. 8 [2009]: 1175–84; PR Newswire, “Antibiotic-Resistant Infections Cost the U.S. Healthcare System in Excess of $20 Billion Annually” [2000], accessed January 11, 2012,
http://www.prnewswire.com
.) But how much of this total is attributable to the use of antibiotics in animals, and how much results from humans' personal use of antibiotics? Eighty percent of the antibiotics used in the United States is fed to, or injected into, farm animals. These animal antibiotics have a significant, but currently unmeasured, effect on human health. The National Academies' Institute of Medicine, for example, has noted that “a decrease in the inappropriate use of antimicrobials in human medicine alone is not enough” to address antimicrobial resistance in humans. “Substantial efforts must be made to decrease inappropriate overuse of antimicrobials in animals and agriculture as well.” (Mark S. Smolinski, Margaret A. Hamburg, and Joshua Lederberg, eds.,
Microbial Threats to Health: Emergence, Detection, and Response
[Washington, DC: National Academies Press, 2003], 207.) In the absence of relevant calculations in the literature, and in light of the significant portion of antibiotics used on animals and the numerous cited instances of antibiotic-resistant diseases passing from animals to humans, it is reasonable to estimate that half of the total health care costs related to antibiotic resistance is attributable to dosing animals. Accordingly, $23.6 billion ($47.2 billion
2) is used as the relevant annual figure.

70
. Adjusted for inflation, $253 billion in 1980 dollars is $706 billion in 2012 dollars. Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation, “U.S. Healthcare Costs,” accessed January 1, 2012,
http://www.kaiseredu.org
.

71
. Adjusted for inflation, $444.2 billion in 2008 dollars is $477 billion in 2012 dollars. Paul A. Heidenreich et al., “Forecasting the Future of Cardiovascular Disease in the United States: A Policy Statement from the American Heart Association,”
Circulation
123 (2011) 933–44.

72
. Adjusted for inflation, $226.8 billion in 2007 dollars is $253 billion in 2012 dollars. American Cancer Society, “Cancer Facts & Figures 2012,” accessed May 24, 2012,
http://www.cancer.org
.

73
. The total 2007 cost associated with diabetes was $174 billion; type 2 diabetes (the type associated with eating animal foods) accounts for 95 percent of the total, or $165.3 billion. After adjustment for inflation, this figure is $184 billion in 2012 dollars. American Diabetes Association, “Economic Costs of Diabetes in the U.S. in 2007,”
Diabetes Care
31, no. 3 (2008); US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, “Diabetes—Success and Opportunities for Population-Based Prevention and Control: At a Glance 2010,” accessed October 18, 2011,
http://www.cdc.gov
.

74
. Regarding heart disease,
see, for example
, Iqbal et al., “Dietary Patterns and Acute Myocardial Infarction,” abstract: “An unhealthy dietary intake . . . accounts for approximately 30% of the population-attributable risk” of acute myocardial infarction. Regarding cancer,
see, for example
, Walker, “Diet in the Prevention of Cancer,” abstract: “Diet is considered responsible for about a third of cases of cancer. . . .” Regarding type 2 diabetes, one study finds nine in ten cases could be avoided by lifestyle changes including eating less saturated fat and red and processed meat. (Dariush Mozaffarian et al., “Lifestyle Risk Factors and New-Onset Diabetes Mellitus in Older Adults,”
Archives of Internal Medicine
169, no. 8 [2009]: 798–807.) This study also found that a healthier diet was associated with a 35 percent lower diabetes risk.
See also
Daniel M. Keller, “High-Protein Diet Raises Type 2 Diabetes Risk,” (lecture, European Association for the Study of Diabetes 47th Annual Meeting, Berlin, Germany, 2011) accessed October 20, 2011,
http://www.medscape.com
. Those eating the most animal protein had 37 percent higher diabetes risk than those eating the least.

75
. The math is as follows, with heart disease costs first, then cancer, and finally type 2 diabetes: (477 x 0.3) + (253/3) + (184/3) = 288.8.

1
. “Huge Spill of Hog Waste Fuels an Old Debate in North Carolina,”
New York Times
(June 25, 1995).

2
. Michael Mallin, “Impacts of Industrial Animal Production on Rivers and Estuaries,”
American Scientist
88 (2000): 26–37.

3
. Merritt Frey, Rachel Hopper, and Amy Fredregill, “Spills and Kills: Manure Pollution and America's Livestock Feedlot” (Washington, DC: Clean Water Network, 2000).

4
. Quoted in “Huge Spill of Hog Waste.”

5
. Quoted in James McWilliams,
Just Food: Where Locavores Get It Wrong and How We Can Eat Responsibly
(New York: Back Bay Books, 2009), 7.

6
. United Nations Environment Program, “Universal Ownership: Why Environmental Externalities Matter to Institutional Investors” (2010), accessed January 17, 2012,
http://www.unpri.org
.

7
. Henning Steinfeld et al.,
Livestock's Long Shadow: Environmental Issues and Options
(Rome: Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, 2006), xx.

8
. Joey Papa, “Styrofoam vs. Paper Cups: Which is More Eco-Friendly?” Recycling: Keep It Out of the Landfill (2010), accessed November 21, 2011,
http://1800recycling.com
.

9
. Michael Pollan,
The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals
(New York: Penguin Press, 2006); Joel Salatin,
Pastured Poultry Profits
(Polyface, Inc., 1993).

10
. Pollan,
Omnivore's Dilemma
.

11
. Comparing the grain inputs fed to chickens to the farm's total meat output for all animals (cattle, chickens, turkeys, pigs, rabbits, and eggs), Merberg finds that caloric input exceeds caloric output by roughly 43 percent. I narrow the comparison to just chicken feed inputs versus chicken-related outputs (eggs, broilers, and stewing hens). Adam Merberg, “The Free Lunch,”
Say What, Michael Pollan
(blog) (2011), accessed December 21, 2011,
http://saywhatmichaelpollan.wordpress.com
.

12
. David Pimentel and Marcia Pimentel, “Sustainability of Meat-Based and Plant-Based Diets and the Environment,”
American Clinical Journal of Nutrition
78, no. 3 (2003): 6605–35.

13
. USDA Economic Research Service, “Loss-Adjusted Food Availability of Meat, Poultry, Fish, Eggs and Nuts” (2012), accessed September 28, 2012,
http://www.ers.usda.gov
.