The New York Times has prepared an
investigative report on a remote research facility on the Nebraska plains. The project was begun because of a whistle blower who had worked at the facility for 24 years. The whistle blower, James Keen, a scientist and veterinarian, was concerned about the disregard for animal mistreatment and the the frankenstein tactics of research done at the center. Dr. Keen approached
The Times a year ago with his concerns and
The Times proceeded to interview two dozen current and former center employees, and reviewed thousands of pages of internal records obtained under the Freedom of Information Act.
Pigs are having many more piglets — up to 14, instead of the usual eight — but hundreds of those newborns, too frail or crowded to move, are being crushed each year when their mothers roll over. Cows, which normally bear one calf at a time, have been retooled to have twins and triplets, which often emerge weakened or deformed, dying in such numbers that even meat producers have been repulsed.
[...]
These experiments are not the work of a meat processor or rogue operation. They are conducted by a taxpayer-financed federal institution called the U.S. Meat Animal Research Center, a complex of laboratories and pastures that sprawls over 55 square miles in Clay Center, Neb. Little known outside the world of big agriculture, the center has one overarching mission: helping producers of beef, pork and lamb turn a higher profit as diets shift toward poultry, fish and produce.
[...]
“They pay tons of attention to increasing animal production, and just a pebble-sized concern to animal welfare,” said James Keen, a scientist and veterinarian who worked at the center for 24 years. “And it probably looks fine to them because they’re not thinking about it, and they’re not being held accountable. But most Americans and even livestock producers would be hard pressed to support some of the things that the center has done.”
Listen to Dr. Keen speak here.
The report found that the research is done to benefit the needs and increase the profits of the 21st-century meat industry. Like they need more support to produce more cheap meat which has created a major public health crisis and is a major contributor to climate change.