Ethical Considerations: Higher Rate of Disease in Free Range Pork

The New York Times is carrying an op-ed piece by James E. McWilliams about the higher rate of salmonella, toxoplasma, and trichina in free range pork compared to factory farmed pork. Unfortunately, McWilliams seems to miss part of the point about free range farming. He focuses almost solely on the taste of the meat in free ranged versus factory farmed animals. McWilliams pooh-poohs free range advocates, saying that "To equate the highly controlled grazing of pigs with wild animals in a state of nature is to insult the essence of nature, domestication and wild pigs." I'm not aware of anyone who makes this claim, or who states that free range meat tastes just like wild meat.

I also had to raise an eyebrow at McWilliams' assertion that "The natural dangers that motivated farmers to bring animals into tightly controlled settings in the first place haven't gone away." Historically, farmers didn't invent factory farming to protect their pigs from danger. Factory farming is an intensive way to grow the most meat in the least amount of space possible. McWilliams doesn't even acknowledge the existence of ethical considerations. It seems not to have occurred to him that some people prefer to eat meat from animals raised humanely, or at least more humanely than factory farm conditions.

Of course, as McWilliams points out, pigs which live outside are exposed to a far greater number of disease vectors. Feral cats transmit toxoplasmosis, and rats bring a host of their own diseases. Furthermore, the journal Foodborne Pathogens and Diseases reports that two out of 600 sampled free range pigs were carrying the trichina parasite.

Here's a question that McWilliams' article doesn't answer: were the free range pigs sicker because they weren't consuming vast quantities of antibiotics? If the free range pigs were not being fed antibiotic-laced food, then it isn't fair to compare their disease rates with factory farmed pigs.

In order to make a fair comparison, the factory farmed pigs would have to go off their antibiotics. What would happen then? I suspect that the disease rates would be vastly higher in the factory farmed pigs. This follows logically, since factory farmers are not going to pay extra money for something they don't need. Therefore, they would only be buying more expensive antibiotic food if it was really necessary.

The issue of antibiotics in pig feed is not simply a vague, crunchy granola hippie issue. First, consider the ethical implications of raising animals in an environment so devastating that they must receive a constant stream of antibiotics in order to survive it. Then, consider the CDC's own report that the spread of antibiotic-resistant diseases like MRSA and VRE is being caused by our practice of abusing antibiotics in the farm setting.

Interestingly enough, just a few weeks ago the New York Times ran another Op-Ed piece by Nicholas D. Kristof on this very topic. Kristof points out that MRSA is now being found in pork, and points out that "Seventy percent of all antibiotics in the United States go to healthy livestock."