President

1600 Pennsylvania Ave

NW, Washington, DC 20500

Dear, President,

As humans we are not the only creatures on earth. As humans we have a responsibility to care for those who cannot care for themselves. “Some people can be reasoned into sense, and others must be shocked into it.” (Letter to Elihu Palmer.) The issues surrounding animal cruelty have been neglected by countless individuals; pushing them aside and leaving the issue to corrode alongside other neglected issues. Therefore, I will not tread light upon animal cruelty, I will open the closet door so you can stare the true beast in the face. Farm factories.

Many do not know the aberrations farm factory and a farm because they are hidden from the public eye. Farm factories are large industrial facilities that raise animals within large numbers: cows, pigs, chickens, etc. In a research done by The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA). They discovered “over 99% of farm animals in the U.S. are raised in factory farms”(ASPCA), this means 1% of farm animals are raised naturally within the U.S. You may ask what is the harm in mass production of a good in critical demand? Well the answer is within every bite of food you eat. ASPCA states that farm factories are “breeding grounds for Salmonella, E. coli and other pathogens that can be passed to humans through meat, dairy and eggs, as well as through person-to-person contact. To combat unsanitary conditions, animals are fed large doses of antibiotics—but bacteria is constantly adapting and evolving. Misuse, overuse and dependence on antibiotics in our food system creates the potential for dangerous, drug-resistant strains of bacteria to develop and spread among people and animals”. Not only are farm factories abusive towards animals they are slowly filling the human raised with antibiotics and growth hormones, which most Americans are clueless to. We often read the labels of our food seeing words including “no-hormones” or “free- range” but what we don't see is the way facilities like farm factories can fool us into thinking these labels are healthy.

• Natural: Does not impact animal welfare in any way.
  
• Free-Range: No legal definition for use on eggs, pork, beef or dairy.
  
• Humanely Raised/Humanely Handled: Undefined and subjective terms without codified standards.
  
• Hormone-Free/No Hormones Added: Hormones are not approved by law for use on pigs or poultry, so the term is meaningless on those products.
  
• Cage-Free: On eggs, this label indicates hens were not raised in battery cages. However, it is an empty claim on poultry meat as meat birds are rarely raised in cages, and are instead crowded into large, open sheds.
  

We as Americans assume our laws will handle these types of issues, but sorely that is not the case. Animals that are raised for food are the least protected animals under the law. I urge you to right this wrong we have made as Americans. We have let down those who cannot speak for themselves, by doing that we have lowered our standard of living. If the operations of farm factories continue to rise, one can only imagine the toll that would take on human health.