2009 November | Center for a Livable Future

What Carcinogens Are in Your Turkey?

On Monday, U.S. Rep. Steve Israel (D-NY) got folks in New York’s 2^nd Congressional District talking turkey about the potential hazards that may be in their Thanksgiving meal.

With a Thanksgiving dinner–complete with all the trimmings–serving as a backdrop, Israel used the press conference to formally announce legislation he introduced in the U.S. House to get arsenic out of the nation’s poultry supply.

CLF’s Science Director, Dr. Keeve Nachman, joined Israel at the press conference on the proposed legislation (H.R. 3624), also called the “Poison Free Poultry Act.” The legislation would ban the use of an arsenical drug called roxarsone, which is commonly added to chicken and poultry feed, from being used as an additive in the U.S. food supply.

“Roxarsone is an arsenic-containing antimicrobial drug that is widely used in poultry production and to a lesser extent in swine production to make food animals grow faster, improve their pigmentation, and to combat intestinal parasites. Studies have shown that some of the arsenic fed to chickens remains in the edible portions of the birds. Arsenic has also been found in poultry waste, where it poses environmental and human health risks when the waste is managed, often by spreading on agricultural fields as fertilizer for food crops,” said CLF’s Nachman, Science Director at the Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future and a leading researcher on arsenic in the food supply.

The Food and Drug Administration Center for Veterinary Medicine regulates tolerance levels for animal drug residue. The tolerance levels for arsenic in edible animal tissue are more than three decades old, predating the latest cancer and arsenic exposure research. Arsenic has been linked to cancer, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, neurological effects, and other health problems.

Israel’s legislation bans roxarsone for use as an additive in the food supply.

According to EPA estimates, the average American adult consumes more than 60 pounds of poultry a year. One way to avoid consuming meat produced using arsenical drugs is by purchasing products labeled “USDA Organic,” which means free of antimicrobial drugs, including roxarsone.

Israel’s legislation is endorsed by a number of organizations, including the Union of Concerned Scientists, The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, The Humane Society of the United States, The Clean Water Network, Huntington Breast Cancer Action Coalition, Food & Water Watch, The National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition, Waterkeeper Alliance, Illinois Citizens for Clean Air & Water, The Organic Consumers Association, Food Animal Concerns Trust (FACT), Ohio Environmental Council, Friends of the Earth, The Center for Food Safety, Citizens Campaign for the Environment, Sierra Club, The Center for Biological Diversity, Friends of Family Farmers and Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future.

“The conference served as a great opportunity to publicly introduce the bill and to raise awareness among the general public about roxarsone-related food contamination and environmental impacts,” Nachman said after the ceremony. Here’s the full text of Dr. Nachman’s statement and a video from the event

Rep. Israel serves on the House Appropriations Committee.

Could ‘Vertical Farming’ Work?

Dickson Despommier brought his idea for vertical urban farms to the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health on Friday, and his audience of more than 100 people responded with a mixture of enthusiasm and skepticism.

Despommier is director of the Vertical Farm Project and a professor of environmental health sciences at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health. He believes the combination of increasing human population and the increasing crop failures seen on much of our cropland necessitates new ways of producing food. He proposes vertical indoor farms that grow hydroponically, use local wastewater and solid waste (as fertilizer), and market to local urban customers as one way to address the growing demand for food.

“Do we need to invent anything to make this happen? The answer is no,” Despommier said. “I think the solutions are out there. We just have to piece them together in the proper way.”

In a Scientific American article this month, Despommier writes: “A one-square-block farm 30 stories high could yield as much food as 2,400 outdoor acres, with less subsequent spoilage.” Read More >

Alabama bans imported catfish after testing

Farmed catfish made news in November as Alabama Agriculture and Industries Commissioner Ron Sparks announced a ban on all untested fish from Vietnam and China due to antibiotic drug residues detected in imported catfish from those countries (Associate Press). Catfish from Vietnam (i.e. basa, tra, or pangasius all called “Vietnamese catfish”) and China’s channel catfish contained residues of fluoroquinolones, a group of antibiotics prohibited by the FDA in fish or seafood.

Though catfish may look cute, aquaculture-raised channel catfish are big business in the Southeast United States fetching over $400 million in 2003 and accounting for 46% of the value of all domestic aquaculture (Miss State Extension Service). In 2006, the US produced about 560 million tons of catfish, compared to about 28 million tons of imported catfish from Vietnam and China in the same year (Associated Press), which is beginning to create a rivalry between US producers and imports.

picture-1 channel catfish :: wikimedia commons

The recent ban on imported Vietnamese and Chinese catfish in Alabama could represent a move to regain control of the US catfish market. The Catfish Farmers of America have taken out advertisements in the Washington Post and Politico urging Congress to improve testing of imported fish. Reading between the line in catfish industry statements, it is hard to tell whether the true motivation is consumer safety (due to exposure to antimicrobial residues in fish fillets) or protecting domestic catfish market share— or both (Associated Press). Read More >

Local farmers thank you for eating your greens

At the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, we’ve been getting a lot of greens in our Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) shares. But as it turns out, our willingness to enjoy (or even just to tolerate) the unexpected results of the growing process helps keep small farms economically viable, particularly during agricultural disasters.

JHSPH CSA members know a good pepper when they see one

Our CSA is an arrangement where customers subscribe to a weekly share of produce from a local, organic farmer. Unlike shopping in a supermarket, customers receive whatever seasonal produce survives the myriad of environmental dangers that threaten a crop – insects, weeds, fungi or lousy weather. Because of the unpredictable contents of a CSA “shopping cart,” CSA members typically exhibit a great deal of culinary adaptation and flexibility. This season was no exception – when we were expecting winter squash, we instead received bundles of delicious leafy greens. For some this was a blessing, but others had exhausted their repertoire of kale recipes and began yearning for more variety.

Is confinement the “cruelest manifestation of factory farming?”

pig Yesterday, Dr. James McWilliams-a history professor from Texas State University, author of Just Food: How Locavores are Endangering the Future of Food and How We Can Truly Eat Responsibly, and Johns Hopkins University alum-posted on the New York Times blog Freakonomics. Dr. McWilliams provides an analysis of farrowing crates, which are cages that confine individual lactating female pig. He collects feedback from various farmers to discuss the controversial method of feeding, which some see as cruel factory farming while others argue this method saves the lives of piglets. The blog cites opinions from both sides of the argument.

For example, Dr. McWilliams cites a farmer, Ms. Deanna Quan, who states that she follows all of the Animal Welfare Institute guidelines except for the restriction on farrowing crates. She states that “instead of carrying out buckets of dead baby pigs, I now have a 95 to 98 percent survival rate [because of her use of farrowing crates].” On the contrary, Dr. Temple Grandin, an animal scientist at Colorado State University, states that these crates are similar to a human being “buckled into an airplane seat for six weeks.” Read More >

CLF Director Robert Lawrence Receives APHA’s Highest Honor

Robert S. Lawrence, MD, director of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health’s Center for a Livable Future (CLF), has been presented with the Sedgwick Award Medal for Distinguished Service in Public Health, the American Public Health Association’s (APHA) oldest and most prestigious award. The award was established to recognize distinguished service to public health. Lawrence was presented with the award at the Public Health Awards Reception & Ceremony on November 11 in Philadelphia, Penn., at the close of APHA’s 137^th Annual Meeting and Exposition.

“Dr. Lawrence has worked to expand access to health care to the poor and racial minorities in the United States, investigated and promoted human rights internationally, taught and established programs in human rights and public health and provided cutting-edge leadership on the intersection of agricultural policy and environmental protection,” said APHA executive director Georges Benjamin, MD, FACP, FACEP.

“APHA could not have selected a better recipient for this award. Throughout his career, Bob Lawrence has been an inspiration to thousands of students and worked tirelessly to promote policies that protect health, the global environment and sustain life for future generations,” said Michael J. Klag, MD, MPH, dean of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

“I am deeply honored by this award and especially humbled to be sharing this recognition with previous Hopkins recipients Wade Hampton Frost, Abel Wolman, and Fred Soper,” Lawrence said.

In addition to directing CLF, Lawrence is the Center for a Livable Future Professor in the Bloomberg School’s Department of Environmental Health Sciences and professor of Health Policy and Management and International Health. He is a graduate of Harvard College and Harvard Medical School, and he trained in internal medicine at the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. He has also served as a clinical fellow for the British Medical Research Council Rheumatism Unit in Taplow, England.

Lawrence began his teaching career in 1970 as assistant professor of medicine at the University of North Carolina. He has taught at Harvard Medical School, where he was the founding director of the Division of Primary Care, at New York University, and at Johns Hopkins.

Among his hospital appointments, Lawrence served as attending physician at North Carolina Memorial Hospital in Chapel Hill, clinical associate in medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital, attending physician at the Beth Israel Hospital, and chief of medicine at Cambridge Hospital. Bringing his skills to health policy, Lawrence served as director of health sciences at the Rockefeller Foundation and has regularly advised philanthropists on global health matters. He chaired the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force from 1984 to 1989, served on the task force from 1990 to 1995 and currently serves as a consultant to the Task Force on Community Preventive Services at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Lawrence co-founded Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) and has participated in human rights investigations on behalf of that group or others in Chile, Czechoslovakia, Egypt, El Salvador, Guatemala, Kosovo, the Philippines and South Africa. In 1997, he was a member of a delegation of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and PHR invited by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of South Africa to testify about human rights abuses in the health sector during the apartheid era. Read More >

Join The CLF Conversation at APHA!

CLF staff members are gearing up for the 137^th Annual Meeting of the American Public Health Association. The conference, “Water and Public Health,” runs from Nov. 7-11 at the Philadelphia Convention Center. We’ll be exhibiting at the Expo, Booth Number 1652. Stop in and visit with CLF staffer to learn more about the Center’s recent work. Some sessions not to miss: On Monday, Nov. 9 at 8:30 am, check out, “Public Health in an Era of Resource Depletion: Ensuring Access to Water, Food, and Energy.” Moderated by CLF Director Robert Lawrence, the session will examine how the depletion of resources fundamental to human life is shaping the health of entire populations, particularly socially and economically disadvantaged groups. Wenonah Hauter, Executive Director of Food and Water Watch; Patrick Webb, PhD, Tufts University; and Howard Frumkin, MD, DrPH, Director, NCEH/ATSDR, US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, are panelists.

On Wednesday, Nov. 11, plan to attend the Environmental Health poster session, Food and the Environment, moderated by CLF Research and Policy Director, Roni Neff, PhD. CLF Predoctoral Fellow Jillian Fry will present “Role of public health departments serving communities affected by Industrial Food Animal Production (IFAP): A framework using the ten essential services of public health”; and Beth Feingold, also a CLF Predoctoral Fellow, will present “Satellite Remote Sensing of Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations: An Application of an Emerging Tool in Environmental Exposure Assessment.”

Here’s a selected list of APHA sessions at this years meeting that will address the links between Food, Agriculture & Environment. And you can stay in touch with the latest at APHA sessions through Twitter, hashtag #APHA09 or through CLF @livablefuture.

-Chris Stevens