Des Moines Register
12-02-06
Critics use false claims against modern hog operations
By MIKE VER STEEG
SPECIAL TO THE REGISTER
I can't say it surprised me to read a recent study that shows people here in Lyon
County have some of the longest life spans in the nation. We believe in clean
living, hard work and being good to our neighbors, and that's bound to pay off.
What does surprise me is how people outside the business and outside this
county continue to get ink in The Des Moines Register by throwing around
unscientific reports that hog producers like me are ruining the health of adults
and children who live near modern hog facilities. Lyon County and Sioux County
(two counties noted for longevity in the study) also rank among the top 10 hogproduction counties in the state. Talk about ironic!
I'm a third-generation, 33-year-old hog producer. All I've ever wanted to do is
farm. I work in an 850-sow hog barn every day of my life, seven hours a day. My
wife and three young children also help out. All are in good health, and I haven't
had a sick day in 10 years. My father, a longtime hog producer and veterinarian,
also is of good health. Activists often cite a University of Iowa study linking hog
confinements to childhood asthma. If I believed it were true, I never would have
built our home just 150 yards north of our earthen manure-storage basin.
It's sad to see your newspaper continue to give credence to false claims from
folks with no working experience or credibility in the industry rather than to seek
out the views of people who actually live and do the work on the farm and speak
with that full-time farmer experience.
I read that U of I study, and the results are often misquoted by activists and
hobby farmers. Dr. Joel Kline, a professor of internal medicine, noted in his
summary statement that his results were inconclusive. Furthermore, "Because
different sets of physicians are responsible for the medical care of the groups of
children, it is possible that physician bias is responsible for the different
prevalence of asthma diagnoses. This was not explored in the study."
But what's really troubling is that the study, which the Register continues to cite,
also didn't consider whether there were any smokers in the homes where there
were children with asthma symptoms. Secondhand smoke has been positively
linked to upward of 26,000 new cases of childhood asthma a year, according to
dozens of studies documented in a 430-page report published by the National
Cancer Institute in November 2000. Anyone can do a simple Google search and
find 590,000 hits of studies and other stories that link cigarette smoke to asthma.
I also found a recent one by Steven Hoff, an agricultural and biosystems
engineering professor at Iowa State University, which says that a litter box
from an indoor cat might have a stronger link to ammonia levels in a home than a
4,800-head hog confinement.
I think there are good operators and bad, and no one worth their weight in salt
would defend the bad. But we all need to step back and stop using the broad
brush to paint all modern hog barns as "factory farms" out to ruin the health and
well-being of Iowans.
I truly believe the folks with agendas out to ruin all family farms bigger than their
own will one day be called on their hurtful and false rhetoric. After reading that
study about long life in my home county, I have to say, time is on my side!
MIKE VER STEEG of Inwood is a third-generation family farmer.