Film Review

By Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat

A River of Waste: The Hazardous Truth about Factory Farms
Directed by Don McCorkell
Cinema Libre Studio 07/09 DVD/VHS Documentary
Not Rated

"The notion that our food system is the safest in the world is nothing more than a lie," states Don McCorkell, a former Oklahoma Congressman who is the director of this troubling and scary documentary about the environmental and health problems being caused by modern poultry and meat production farms. Most of these factory farms are owned by a handful of large corporations and they are operating for one goal alone: the bottom line of profit.

Whereas the European Union has set up very restrictive rules and regulations for CAFOs (Confined Animal Feeding Operations), the United States has not done so, thanks to the powerful lobbying campaigns launched against any local or federal initiatives to set higher standards for protecting the health and well being of the public and the environment. McCorkell draws up a report card comparing the operation of factory farms here and abroad and gives the U.S. failing marks for ammonia, antibiotics, growth hormones, odors and dust, animal welfare, high levels of arsenic, and the dumping of sewage into waterways.

Among those making the case against meat and poultry production farms are Paul Shapiro, Senior Director of the Humane Society's Factory Farming Campaign; Drew Edmonson, Oklahoma's Attorney General; Dr. Robert Lawrence of the John Hopkins Center for a Livable Future; Michele Merkel of the Environmental Integrity Project; and Paris Glendening, Former Governor of Maryland. One reputable scientific agency has said that the unethical activities of factory farms as creating "mini-Chernobyls." Certainly families who have lost children on account of exposure to toxic materials released into streams or dumped on the land, would agree with this extreme accusation.

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by Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat