Dead animals must be disposed of in an acceptable manner within 48 hours of death. Very small plants (categories 1 and 2), which are often niche providers, were excluded.‡. There is a clear positive relationship between COVID-19 cases and deaths in relation to livestock facilities, and the county-level mean case rate varies directly with a county’s proximity to a neighboring county with a livestock facility. [5] Pinterest. Next, we address concerns that these results primarily reflect differences in testing. We used the CDC’s state-level aggregate count of livestock workers testing positive for COVID-19 as of May 31 across 26 states (64). Typically the victims of such attacks are cats, dogs, and other family pets,[30] and the actions of humans are usually limited to acts of cruelty such as striking, burning, or beating animals. M. Rommel Jr, Kenneth, Operation Animal Mutilation, pp.22-23. Subsection 70 (2) requires the legal representative of such a deceased farmer to include the value of livestock at death in the deceased farmer's income tax return for the year of death or elect to file a separate return to include the value of all the decedent's rights or things (including livestock) and pay tax thereon for the taxation year in which the farmer died as if the farmer were another person. For nearest-neighbor matching, we used the MatchIt package in R to restrict the sample to similar treated and control groups. Livestock deaths . This article contains supporting information online at https://www.pnas.org/lookup/suppl/doi:10.1073/pnas.2010115117/-/DCSupplemental. The COVID-19 pandemic is a public health and economic crisis in which policymakers face tradeoffs between maintaining essential economic activities and mitigating disease spread. Our estimates imply that excess COVID-19 infections and deaths related to livestock plants are 236,000 to 310,000 (6 to 8% of all US cases) and 4,300 to 5,200 (3 to 4% of all US deaths), respectively, with the vast majority occurring among people not working at livestock plants. Livestock producers are in the business of producing marketable meat products. Reporter Dane Edwards spread the theory that the government was testing cattle parts to develop biological weapons to use in Vietnam, going so far as to write to Floyd K. Haskell during his investigation to accuse agents of threatening him into silence. Because these plants provide a central location for moving products, it is plausible that a linear increase in the potential infected within the plant would entail a nonlinear response, owing to the complex and exponential nature of disease-transmission dynamics (70). Included in counts are both confirmed and probable deaths, as categorized by states. ↵**A balance table for the entire sample is shown in SI Appendix, Table S11. Counties with plants have higher population density, a lower proportion of elderly people, higher proportions of Black and Hispanic people, and larger household sizes. Covid-19 and community mitigation strategies in a pandemic, Scientific and ethical basis for social-distancing interventions against COVID-19, Projecting hospital utilization during the COVID-19 outbreaks in the United States, The effect of human mobility and control measures on the COVID-19 epidemic in China, Impact of international travel and border control measures on the global spread of the novel 2019 coronavirus outbreak, Advisory memorandum on identification of essential critical infrastructure workers during COVID-19 response, (Tech. Copyright © 2020 National Academy of Sciences. [14], In the summer of 2019, five bulls were mutilated at the Silvies Valley Ranch in Oregon. The relationship between local COVID-19 incidence and medium and large plants (FSIS categories 4 or 5) owned or operated by some of the largest US processors (National Beef, JBS, Tyson, Cargill, and Smithfield) and their subsidiaries is presented in SI Appendix, Table S6. Livestock deaths . The overall IV results in Table 3 show the relationship between livestock facilities and COVID-19 case and death rates to be even stronger for each outcome, except the within-state death rate, which is of comparable magnitude but less precisely estimated. Given that the average closing period was only 9 d, it is unclear whether the plant closures themselves reduced COVID-19 transmission rates, or whether closures resulted in plants taking more COVID-19 precautions (e.g., implementing enhanced safety protocols). Globally, economic losses from diseased livestock are estimated at $4 billion, while infectious diseases are responsible for about 30 per cent of animal deaths. Kansas provides a telling example of the outsized role of livestock facilities: As of July 20, a total of 3,200 of 23,300 state cases (14%) were directly linked to meatpacking (67). A second approach used a binary measure for whether a county has one or more livestock plants and multiplied this coefficient by the county-level mean population and number of counties with livestock plants. Oliphant posits the NIH, CDC, or other federally funded bodies, may be involved, and they are supported by the US military. In other words, for every worker infected at a livestock plant, between seven and eight local nonworkers were ultimately infected by the end of the sample period, underscoring the high potential for community spread. The Country Land and Business Association (CLA), National Farmers Union (NFU), Countryside Alliance (CA) and Tenant Farmers Association (TFA) have written to Rural Affairs Minister, Lord Gardiner, outlining how … We also use an alternate specification with a binary measure of whether a county has one or more livestock plants. Within 1 wk of closure, however, the growth rate in shutdown counties reverted to the prepolicy growth rate from a higher peak, compared to nonshutdown counties in the same time. [38], During their investigations, the FBI and the ATF were unable to find appropriate evidence, including signs of consistency between mutilations, to substantiate that the animals had been the victims of any form of ritual sacrifice or organized mutilation effort. designed research, performed research, analyzed data, and wrote the paper. Following a spike in livestock-related deaths, rural groups have joined forces to call for an amendment to the Highways Act 1980 which would improve safety on public rights of way. He also stated that "I would like to see Rommel write off our confirmed cases as due to predators". [11]:13 It also contended that alleged surgical techniques performed during mutilations had become "more professional" over time. This page was last edited on 15 December 2020, at 18:16. More broadly, the finding that meatpacking plants may contribute to high levels of community spread underscores the potential negative public health externalities generated by the industry, which may be attributable to industrial concentration, operating practices, and labor conditions. Error bars reflect a 95% CI. We further find the temporary closure of high-risk plants to be followed by lower rates of COVID-19 case growth. In one case documented by New Mexico police and the FBI,[11] an 11-month-old cross Hereford-Charolais bull, belonging to a Mr. Manuel Gomez of Dulce, New Mexico, was found mutilated on March 24, 1978. This degree of concentration stands in contrast to the European Union (EU), for example, where the top 15 meat companies represent 28% of EU meat production (28). Rep., USDA Food Safety and Inspection Service, Washington, DC, 2020), Tracking covid-19’s impact on meatpacking workers and industry, United States agriculture data, 1840–2012, Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research. In addition, we performed prepolicy matching across the two groups based on percent case growth in the 2 wk prior to shutdown. Bromley David G. and Anson Shupe (1981), Strange Gods: The Great American Cult Scare. 1 plots average COVID-19 case and death rates over time by whether there is a large livestock facility in a given county relative to rates in counties at varying distances from a plant. ** SI Appendix, Table S15 consolidates the results and includes outputs from Table 1 for reference. We do not capture any email address. A number of livestock deaths are reported each year from unknown causes. In his 1997 article “Dead Cows I've Known”,[39] cattle mutilation researcher Charles T. Oliphant speculates cattle mutilation to be the result of covert research into emerging cattle diseases, and the possibility they could be transmitted to humans. Now if you are in a great confusion about the sudden deaths in your livestock, this article is the right place from where you will be getting a right idea about the whole matter. We note that the IV approach restricts identifying variation to that attributable to livestock agriculture proximity, thereby reducing statistical power. We controlled for the same demographic and location-based covariates as in other models. The estimates resulting from this exercise were, respectively, 236,000 to 310,000 cases and 4,300 to 5,200 deaths. Ruminants like bison, cattle, sheep, and goats are highly susceptible and are often infected by consuming forage contaminated with spores. Experiments have also been conducted to compare the different reactions of surgically cut hide/flesh and predated hide/flesh to natural exposure. ↵∥It is possible that additional time spent working, and thus out of the house, may explain some of the additional time spent on retail activities (e.g., gas stations or workday meals). Using this ratio to estimate the total number of infected livestock workers among all of the cases observed in these states on July 21, we arrived at an estimate of 35,635 infected workers, ∼7% of the industry’s entire employee base. Preslaughter handling is a major concern to the livestock industry, especially the pork industry. [citation needed], Since the beginning of the cult hypothesis, law enforcement agents in several states and provinces, including Alberta, Idaho, Montana, and Iowa have reported evidence implicating cults in several instances of cattle mutilations. [11]:13 However, officers in charge were unable to determine responsibility or motive. ↵††We present summary statistics by distance band in SI Appendix, Tables S16–S18. For context, there are 17,200 employees in the animal-slaughtering industry in Kansas (68), or 0.6% of the state’s population, suggesting that livestock plants had a relationship of a magnitude closer in scale to our own estimates (Kansas’ estimate is 23× their labor footprint). Livestock handlers are involved in Highways Act amendment could prevent livestock-related deaths By Becky Payne Agricultural reporter Following a spike in livestock-related deaths, rural groups have joined forces to … Mean county-level COVID-19 cases per thousand (A) and deaths per thousand (B) over time based on proximity to a livestock facility. In the experiment, the body of a recently deceased cow was left in a field and observed for 48 hours. Livestock What you need to do ... HSE aims to reduce work-related death, injury and ill health. Additionally, we have shown that the dynamics over time of COVID-19 cases and deaths vary with the timing of livestock-plant shutdowns. Because of the higher milk consumption, especially by young children, pregnant and nursing… The standard criminal charge for mutilating an animal, including cattle, is animal cruelty. Livestock and wild animals are important to their owners and the country. However, the speed with which growth rates rose and fell in shutdown counties suggests that some closure-related mechanism is likely at play. Today, Livestock has grown to four retail store locations, and an online store that ships to hundreds of countries worldwide. That the apparent absence of blood at mutilation sites may indicate cult members harvest it, That organs have been removed from cattle for use in rituals. The bulk of mutilations are the result of predation and other natural processes, and those with anomalies that cannot be explained in this way are the work of humans who derive pleasure or sexual stimulation from mutilating animals. 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