Ag Gag Obscenity
by Garth Davis, MD on June 26, 2015The world becomes increasingly bizarre to me. The influence of industry and the control of money is astounding. It is just so frustrating.
Around the country, state legislatures, at the behest of animal agriculture industry, are proposing and passing “ag gag” bills. The basic goal of these laws is to prevent anybody from filming or recording anything that happens in the animal agriculture business.
Undercover filming has exposed unbelievable, and very illegal, treatment of animals in the past. Undercover reporting has also helped bring change to worker environment. Importantly, many possible outbreaks of food borne illness have come out of these kind of reports.
Nobody likes to see the videos of the horror that happens in factories. However, those videos have been successful at making changes. You would never see the inside of a slaughter house or CAFO otherwise. They are hidden and guarded.
The industry know that if you see where the food comes from you may not want to eat it. So they want to do anything they can to block you from knowing where your food came from.
These laws would make it illegal for a worker to document any illegal activity they see happening in the plant. The worker can actually serve jail time for turning in a company that is breaking the law!
What the hell is going on in this ridiculous world?