hundreds, and the overall risk of contracting
the prion disease from beef appears to be very
small.
Controversies in Modern
Meat Production
Meat production is big business. In the United
States just a few decades ago, it was second
only to automobile manufacturing. Both
industry and government have long
underwritten research on innovative ways to
control meat production and its costs. The
result has been a reliable supply of relatively
inexpensive meat, but also a production
system increasingly distant from its origins in
the family farmer’s pasture, pigsty, and
chicken coop, and troubling in various ways.
Many innovations involve the use of
chemicals to manipulate animal metabolism.
These chemicals act as drugs in the animals,
and raise worries that they may influence