DEAR READERS: If we humans had respected water as Mother Earth’s lifeblood, plants as her lungs, animals as her children and air as our shared spirit, perhaps the Industrial Revolution would have made a better, safer world than we have today.

The Industrial Revolution has led to the creation of the technosphere, of which chemical and electropollution are harmful byproducts. These ill effects must be contained and transformed to prevent the globalization of bio-industrialized wastelands, like industrial agriculture’s millions of pesticide- and herbicide-poisoned acres, filled with genetically engineered crops.

The technosphere’s escalating energy demands -- for its ever-proliferating data centers, cybercurrency mining and transactions, and other services -- need to be tempered to reduce the severity of climate change and our exposure to associated electropollution.

For more than a decade, several authors have documented the validity of concerns over the issues of electropollution and exposure to electromagnetic fields and nonionizing radiation. Notably, physician Samuel Milham warns that because of the recent proliferation of radio frequency radiation -- from cellphones, cell towers, terrestrial antennas, Wi-Fi systems, broadband internet over power lines and other electronic equipment -- we may be facing a looming epidemic of morbidity and mortality. In his 2012 book, “Dirty Electricity,” he reveals the steps we must take, personally and as a society, to coexist with this marvelous but dangerous technology. (See also “An Electronic Silent Spring” by Katie Singer and “The Invisible Rainbow” by Arthur Firstenberg.)

In the last decade, a plethora of scientific studies have been published that support the concerns of these authors and other informed parties. From a One Health perspective, we have created a technosphere that is damaging the biosphere at many levels. It is an existential challenge to rectify this imbalance so that we can live in greater harmony with other sentient beings and achieve better health and quality of life.

BOOK REVIEW: 'OUT OF SIGHT' BY GAIL A. EISNITZ

“Out of Sight: An Undercover Investigator’s Fight for Animal Rights and Her Own Survival” is a memoir by Gail Eisnitz, chief investigator for the Humane Farming Association and recipient of the Albert Schweitzer Medal for her work on behalf of animals. Her earlier book, “Slaughterhouse: The Shocking Story of Greed, Neglect and Inhumane Treatment Inside the U.S. Meat Industry,” documented how the billions of animals that people eat are routinely mistreated and slaughtered.

The Humane Slaughter Act requires that all farm animals, except poultry, be humanely handled and rendered unconscious before being butchered. In spite of the law, farmed animals across the U.S. had no effective protection from inhumane handling and slaughter; many were being skinned and scaled alive until Eisnitz reported her findings to the media, the courts and her readers.

All who care about animals, and for the poor people (many of them immigrants) who work in animal slaughterhouses, should read Eisnitz’s work. I have visited factory farms and slaughterhouses in several countries, rich and poor, and can attest to the interminable suffering of animals raised and killed for human consumption. As Eisnitz concludes in her just-released memoir, spot checks in the U.S. only catch violators when inspectors are present.

Compounding that problem, in March, the Trump administration announced that it is starting the process of lifting the cap on slaughterhouse production line speeds. The cap is currently set at the meteoric rate of 1,106 hogs per slaughter line per hour -- roughly one hog slaughtered every four seconds. Soon, some slaughterhouses may be free to kill hogs as quickly and recklessly as they want. For poultry, who have no protections under the HSA and are often immersed in scalding tanks alive, the administration is seeking to increase evisceration line speeds from 140 birds per minute to 175 per minute. This poses a threat not only to the workers, who suffer from repetitive motion injuries, but to the animals themselves.

Farm animal welfare deficits need to be rectified, especially for mother pigs confined to narrow crates their entire lives (a practice being phased out in the U.K.), and laying hens crowded into small cages in factory farms. Dairy cows and beef cattle need better protection from extreme weather events in outdoor feedlots.

Transportation of these animals to slaughter is another issue. Shipping many animals together saves money, which means that when overcrowding, trampling, suffocation and death from extreme cold and heat occur, such losses are written off as a business expense.

Animals suffer a great deal on the way to America’s dinner tables. Arm yourself with the facts and get a copy of “Out of Sight.”

(Send all mail to animaldocfox@gmail.com or to Dr. Michael Fox in care of Andrews McMeel Syndication, 1130 Walnut St., Kansas City, MO 64106. The volume of mail received prohibits personal replies, but questions and comments of general interest will be discussed in future columns.

Visit Dr. Fox’s website at DrFoxOneHealth.com.)

DEAR DR. FOX: I watched Dr. Sanjay Gupta’s “Animal Pharm” documentary on CNN on May 18 about genetically engineering and cloning pigs to be organ donors for people needing a new heart, liver or kidney. I wonder: What is your response to this amazing science of biotechnology? -- B.K., Washington, D.C.

DEAR B.K.: I wrote about this technology, called xenotransplantation, in my 2004 book, “Killer Foods: When Scientists Manipulate Genes, Better is Not Always Best.” I detailed the risks of swine viruses being transmitted to humans receiving pig organs, which was also mentioned in the CNN program. I also noted that in the U.S. and the U.K., “this research continues and entails much suffering for monkeys, who are used as test recipients for pig hearts and kidneys.”

I watched Dr. Gupta’s excellent coverage of this issue, which noted it will be some five years before there is a reliable supply of pig organs. However, there were no details about costs. The ethical cost is certainly high, in terms of paving the way for yet another form of animal exploitation. These concerns were mollified by the recipient of a pig’s kidney, who is Catholic and said he had received a letter from the Vatican stating, “God put animals on Earth to serve us.”

Several years ago, I wrote to the Vatican to ask where in the Bible there was any support for what Pope John Paul II declared in an address to veterinarians: that “it is certain that animals were created for man’s use.” The response I received was that a pope’s statements are infallible -- direct from God. That is not my God! I embrace the view of the 14th-century Christian theologian Meister Eckhart, who declared, “Every creature is a word of God.”

For many people, it is through animals and nature that God, or a higher power, speaks to them. To not feel this connection is to live in the absence of the sacred, opening the door to inhumanity. This insensitivity, which I call the empathy deficit disorder, led to the extinction of the passenger pigeon and near-extermination of the bison.

GENE-ENGINEERED PIGS APPROVED FOR HUMAN CONSUMPTION

The Food and Drug Administration has approved CRISPR gene-edited pigs for consumption in the U.S. The pigs have been engineered by British company Genus to resist the virus that causes porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome, or PRRS, which thrives in overcrowded factory farms and kills piglets in the womb.

More details, as reported by MIT Technology Review (technologyreview.com):

"According to Matt Culbertson, chief operating officer of the Pig Improvement Company, a Genus subsidiary, the pigs appear entirely immune to more than 99% of the known versions of the PRRS virus, although there is one rare subtype that may break through the protection. ...

"Culbertson says gene-edited pork could appear in the U.S. market sometime next year. He says the company does not think pork chops or other meat will need to carry any label identifying it as bioengineered. 'We aren’t aware of any labeling requirement,' he says." (Full story: MIT Technology Review, May 2)

Regardless of any consumer safety issues, this does not change the stressful, overcrowded conditions under which pigs are kept in factory farms and CAFOs (concentrated animal feeding operations) around the world. Keeping dogs under such conditions would be prosecuted on the grounds of animal cruelty. CAFOs have virtually no biosecurity, and are a potential public health risk from viruses and bacteria that can spread to humans.

Over 125 million pigs are consumed annually by Americans. There are only an estimated 20 million vegetarians in the country, or 6% of the population. If Robert F. Kennedy Jr. truly wants to "Make America Healthy Again," he must address the overconsumption of meat. It poses many environmental and public health risks and also facilitates animal suffering, as documented in my book “One Health: Veterinary, Ethical and Environmental Perspectives” -- a copy of which I sent to Kennedy.

(Send all mail to animaldocfox@gmail.com or to Dr. Michael Fox in care of Andrews McMeel Syndication, 1130 Walnut St., Kansas City, MO 64106. The volume of mail received prohibits personal replies, but questions and comments of general interest will be discussed in future columns.

Visit Dr. Fox’s website at DrFoxOneHealth.com.)

DEAR DR. FOX: I saw your recent column in which a reader wrote to you about the legislation to overturn the cat declawing ban in St. Louis and St. Louis County. I wanted to let you know that, although this legislation passed the House, we successfully defeated it in a Senate committee.

The Missouri Veterinary Medical Association has attempted to pass this legislation for the past few years. The MVMA is gravely concerned that it may set a precedent for other local ordinances regulating veterinary practices, such as “ventilation shutdown.” Believe it or not, veterinarians have no oversight at the state level in Missouri. They therefore resented it greatly when the local government became involved in regulating veterinary practices, such as the ban on cat declawing.

When I became involved in animal welfare almost 50 years ago, I never thought that our most vigorous opposition would be from veterinary associations. This year, the MVMA also supported legislation that would have resulted in abused animals remaining with their abusers until a criminal trial. Fortunately, that legislation also died in the Missouri Senate.

I am glad you are still fighting the good fight. Please keep up your good work; it is greatly appreciated! -- Bob Baker, Executive Director of the Missouri Alliance for Animal Legislation, St. Louis

DEAR B.B.: I very much appreciate this update on the cat declawing situation in Missouri. I am working with others here in Minnesota to secure a statewide ban on this practice. It is regrettable that the MVMA is neither informed nor ideologically aligned with the veterinary oath of putting animals’ welfare first and foremost. My new book, “One Health: Veterinary, Ethical and Environmental Perspectives,” addresses many of the moral challenges the veterinary profession faces.

You referenced “ventilation shutdown” -- readers should know that this refers to the common practice of killing poultry by switching off the ventilation in factory sheds, where the animals then die from suffocation and overheating. This is often done to prevent the spread of highly infectious diseases like H5N1 avian influenza, but is still unacceptably inhumane.

DEAR DR. FOX: Thank you for publishing my letter about anti-flea and tick products that can harm pets and children. You mentioned that organophosphate insecticides can harm children and should be banned, but you did not say which companies sell such products. Can you give more details? -- B.G., Minneapolis

DEAR B.G.: Your important letter contained valuable information for pet owners. Here are some more details about the companies that are marketing flea collars containing toxic insecticides.

Several U.S. companies manufacture flea and tick collars that contain organophosphates, primarily tetrachlorvinphos (TCVP). These include Pet Armor Flea and Tick Collar, Seresto Flea and Tick Collar, Bio Spot Flea and Tick Collar, Zodiac Flea and Tick Collar, Adams Plus, Hartz Mountain UltraGuard, Elanco and Farnam. These TCVP collars distribute the pesticide gradually over the animal’s body, most of it in the form of dust.

In a 2023 post, BeyondPesticides.org reported: "In unsurprising news, the Environmental Protection Agency has reversed itself and decided not to ban a dangerous pesticide: tetrachlorovinphos (TCVP), used in pet flea collars and other flea products. This is despite its own earlier decision to ban TCVP in pet collars, and (also despite) scathing criticism of (the agency's) methods and conclusions by the courts."

What more can I say? One veterinarian told me of his involvement in researching organophosphates years ago, including laboratory testing on a young chimpanzee. He would bring the animal home on weekends for a break from the lab, often giving her bananas to eat. But the organophosphates from the testing made the ape aggressive, and she had to be euthanized. Several readers, including a police officer with a working dog, have told me that while taking these insecticidal products, their dogs suddenly became aggressive.

Organophosphates are neurotoxins, probably carcinogenic and endocrine-disrupting. Using them on our animal companions and exposing our family members -- children, the elderly and the immunocompromised -- to these chemicals is insane.

As taxpayers, we fund the EPA, but it is currently in disarray under the Trump administration. So we cannot rely on the EPA or the Department of Health and Human Services for consumer protections or public health. I do the best I can in this column to inform, rather than politicize and generate conspiracy theories. I base my opinions on sound science, ethics and common sense.

(Send all mail to animaldocfox@gmail.com or to Dr. Michael Fox in care of Andrews McMeel Syndication, 1130 Walnut St., Kansas City, MO 64106. The volume of mail received prohibits personal replies, but questions and comments of general interest will be discussed in future columns.

Visit Dr. Fox’s website at DrFoxOneHealth.com.)