Iowa Egg Recall and Morality

Billionaires Charles and David Koch are funding the Tea Party to help them defeat environmental regulations that cut into billion dollar profits from their oil, gas, logging, and formaldehyde industries. The Koch brothers have successfully lobbied to prevent the Environmental Protection Agency from classifying one of Koch’s products, formaldehyde, a carcinogen known to cause cancer in humans.

Koch Industries own oil refineries, 4,000 miles of pipeline, and was named one of the top 10 air polluters in America in a 2010 UMass-Amherst report. They have donated millions of dollars to nonprofit groups that fight environmental regulation and spread seeds of doubt about climate science. The Koch agenda calls for an end to federal regulations when recent abuses in the oil, gas, financial, mining, pharmaceutical and even egg industries have been corrupt, criminal and atrocious.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, more than 100,000 Americans suffer from egg borne salmonella each year. Jack DeCoster, founder of Wright egg factory, had salmonella problems in other states, complaints about treatment of factory workers, and was declared a “habitual violator” in Iowa for handling of hog waste. Unsanitary conditions have been uncovered in DeCoster’s feed production facilities and are suspect for the Iowa salmonella outbreak.

Recently the Humane Society of the United States exposed cruelty to chickens at Iowa egg factories, prompting Congressman Steve King and Clarke County Farm Bureau Board of Directors to wage a campaign to discredit HSUS. Recalled eggs came from hens in Iowa suffering in tiny wire-mesh cages that cut their feet and tore out their feathers.

Factory farms have support from Iowans who praise the jobs they provide, blame the consumer for getting sick, and downplay the fact that factory farms replaced sustainable, humane family farms which supported entire families. Iowa tax payers fund people like Jack DeCoster with huge farm subsidies.

It is understandable why men like Charles and David Koch, and Jack DeCoster spend millions of dollars to defeat environmental and food safety regulations to increase their billion dollar profits. It’s impossible to understand why those who label themselves moral, religious people, support animal cruelty, and the poisoning of their children’s air, water and food.

Phyllis Mains