Kinship Circle | Letter Campaigns

6/8/09: Protect ALL Downers: Cows, Pigs, Goats, Sheep...

SOURCE OF INFORMATION / BACKGROUND

•  Downed Animal Protection - No Downers Campaign
•  FACTS: Downed Animals
•  Horton Hears A Cow!
•  U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC)
•  Overview of BSE in North America

Electric prods shock the heads, necks, spines and rectums of animals crumpled on concrete. Eyes blink. Bodies are limp. Organs begin to fail. Some have crushed bones, torn ligaments. Still, heavy chains drag them. Forklift blades toss giant bodies that can barely moan. Concentrated water jets are shot into their noses and throats. “Get ‘em up!”

These are downed animals. Suspended between life and death, they are forced upright to reach kill floors across the U.S.

PHOTOS: Farm Sanctuary

Get the latest facts on downed animals, to enlighten others and make a convincing argument for new laws and policies at slaughterhouses and stockyards.

TAKE ACTION With Contact Information + Sample Letter Below.

CONTACT INFORMATION + SAMPLE LETTER

CONTACT INFORMATION • Print/Send This Letter

Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack
U.S. Department of Agriculture
1400 Independence Ave., S.W.
Washington, DC 20250
Secretary of Agriculture: AgSec@usda.gov
web comment form:
www.usda.gov/wps/portal/?navid=FEEDBACK_FORM

President Barack Obama
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500
comments: 202-456-1111
switchboard: 202-456-1414
fax: 202-456-2461
web mail: www.whitehouse.gov/contact
THERE IS NO PUBLIC EMAIL ADDRESS
FOR PRESIDENT OBAMA.

To find your federal legislators and their contact info, try:
    • www.Congress.org
    • www.house.gov
    • www.senate.gov

The Honorable Representative [YOUR REP'S NAME]
U.S. House of Representatives
Washington, D.C. 20510

The Honorable Senators [YOUR SENATORS' NAMES]
The U.S. Senate, U.S. Capitol Building
Washington, D.C. 20510

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SAMPLE LETTER • Print/Send This Letter

Dear President Obama, Secretary Vilsack, Senators and Representative:

Thank you for banning the slaughter of downed cows and closing a loophole that let some non-ambulatory animals suffer until slaughter. As you know, the prior administration allowed case-by-case evaluations. Cows who collapsed after pre-slaughter inspection were routinely forced upright until killed.

Close to a half million infirm cows are annually dragged to slaughter, according to the Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association (JAVMA). That figure doesn't account for downed pigs, sheep, goats, or other creatures farmed for human consumption. Ultimately, policymakers must stop the transport, marketing and slaughter of ALL downed animals.

Cows transmit E. coli. Pigs carry the bacterium Yersinia enterocolitica and chickens harbor salmonella. These toxic pathogens thrive in animal feces. Downers, who languish in manure for days, have no immune defense against infection.

The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) estimates 76 million U.S. cases of foodborne disease occur yearly. Among them, salmonella poisons 45,808 people (2006) and E. coli O157 infects 70,000 more. Some 5,000 deaths and 325,000 hospitalizations annually stem from foodborne illness. The true tally is much higher because most cases go unreported. One way to lower these numbers is to forbid all downed animals from entry into the human food chain.

The CDC lists 18 North American cases of Mad Cow Disease (8/20/08). Science overwhelmingly links downers to BSE (Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy). Virus-like prions in BSE can trigger Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (CJD), a fatal nervous system infection in humans. Since we don't know exactly how BSE and TSE jump the species barrier, all downed animals are suspect.

As long as battered animals emerge from profit-driven factory farms, the USDA must protect all species. No dying animal should be rammed upright with tractors and forklifts — wrenched, shocked, pounded — so meat makers can eke about $30 out of her tortured body.

Please advocate regulations that safeguard all downed animals; ensure merciful euthanasia; and outlaw use of tractors, forklifts, chains, electric prods, hoses or any violent means to move dying animals.

Thank you,

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