As a doctor, I’m carefully following a hen flu outbreak that’s hitting our Central Valley dairy farms laborious, particularly since the California Division of Well being stories at the very least 26 human instances. This quantity appears to extend every week in our state, which has extra dairy cows than some other. Fowl flu has unfold to at the very least 294 dairy herds in California.
As a board-certified physician in inside and life-style medicines, I assist the well being division’s efforts to watch and check for hen flu, I recognize these calling for further protections for California’s dairy employees, and I commend our public well being officers for doing job of confronting the quick disaster.
However it is usually time to take a tough have a look at the meals manufacturing system that places farm employees in shut contact with sick cows and birds, the normal American weight loss program that calls for it, and the well being ramifications of each.
Amenities with massive numbers of animals in a small house are a risk to public well being as a result of they present perfect situations for viruses to unfold, evolve and probably purchase the flexibility to contaminate folks. Analysis reveals that intensive animal agriculture has been implicated in influenza viruses leaping from animals to folks, and some imagine this hen flu may even turn out to be the supply of our subsequent pandemic.
Just lately officers introduced the disturbing information that hen flu has contaminated a pig in Oregon, a troubling improvement that well being specialists say may imply a extra transmissible and virulent virus.
Customers and farmers who wish to be a part of a extra healthful future might marvel about alternate options to intensive animal farming. When you’re a poultry farmer and hen flu has worn out your flock, it’s possible you’ll be contemplating a change. In actual fact, some are repurposing their rooster homes to develop crops.
California dairy farmers additionally encounter vital challenges, and lots of already had been selecting to exit the enterprise. Now the hen flu outbreak amongst dairy cows is presenting yet one more downside.
A few of these farmers are doubtless fascinated about phasing out the cow’s milk operation and transitioning to plant-based milk manufacturing, or rising crops or orchards. Really, this pattern is already underway. Just some years in the past, the Giacomazzi household of Hanford, homeowners of California’s oldest dairy farm in operation of greater than 125 years, switched from cow’s milk to almond milk.
This transition couldn’t come at a greater time. The plant-based milk business, a $2.9 billion enterprise, is booming. Almond milk is the most well-liked plant-based milk. California produces 80% of the world’s almonds and probably the most almond milk in the USA.
However these transitions contain prices, and California ought to assist farmers who select to make these modifications. We must also assist dairy farmers who transition to rising oats for oat milk, like Califia Farms in Bakersfield, for instance, or almond or soy for milk offered by San Diego Soy Dairy — or any different crop they discover worthwhile.
Shifting away from animal agriculture helps the environment and our financial system and improves employee security. I’ve discovered for myself and my sufferers that it additionally improves well being. A plant-based weight loss program centered on fruits, veggies, beans and greens grown in California may also help preserve wholesome weight, decrease blood strain and enhance coronary heart well being.
I do know this from my very own private expertise and from treating sufferers with diet-related illnesses. Whereas our public well being officers attempt to management our present disaster, I’m hopeful California will transition to a manner of consuming and rising meals that’s each safer and extra nutritious.
Dr. Seema Policepatil focuses on inside drugs and life-style drugs and is a member of the Physicians Committee for Accountable Medication. She wrote this column for CalMatters.
