FACTORY farming may mean cheap food but are we paying too high a price for this benefit in terms of health?
That’s the alarming question tackled by It Shouldn’t Happen to a Pig (BBC-2, 8.10) which launches a new series of Brass Tacks debates.
With poultry, pigs and beef being reared in increasingly crowded conditions that foster large-scale disease, the use of antibiotics is spreading.
Continue reading CHEAP FOOD, BUT AT WHAT COST?The extensive use of drugs on British farms could pose a serious threat to public health through a build up of salmonella infection, according to a TV programme this week.
This and other findings linked to the alleged “indiscriminate” use of drugs in livestock farming were powerfully spelled out in a BBC documentary – a programme shrouded in controversy even before its transmission.
The fist in BBC-2’s new series “Brass Tacks,” it set out to investigate the connections between a rapid build up over the last few years of salmonella virus in meat and the use of certain antibiotics.
Continue reading TV probe into farming drugs useIt appears on the cover of the Radio Times‘ current issue with the caption: “Health warning: Meat and poultry may seriously affect your health.”
The cover highlights tomorrow evening’s BBC-2 programme “Brass Tacks” which takes a critical look at meat production. And it was slammed as alarmist yesterday by the Meat and Livestock Commission.
Chairman Wally Johnstone has sent a protest letter expressing “anger and concern” to the BBC Director General Ian Threthowan.
Continue reading BEEF OVER BEEB’S PIGA COMBINED TV and radio programme on the use of drugs on farm animals has upset farmers and butchers even before it goes out.
They are furious over the front cover of this week’s Radio Times which has a picture of a pig and the caption: ‘Health warning: Meat and poultry may seriously affect your health.’
They are to make sure that their views are aired during a phone-in on 20 local radio stations which will follow the first programme on the subject on BBC 2’s Brass Tacks tomorrow night.
Continue reading Fury at Radio Times PigBrass Tacks (BBC-2, 8.10) returns with a full-blooded commitment to the multi-media technique it has pioneered: a report and debate thrashing through a topic of current controversy in the television programme, with BBC local radio stations lined up to start phone-in discussion the moment the television has ended.
Factory farming, and the public risk of food poisoning arising from its crowded conditions and use of drugs – with salmonella the main enemy – is the first subject.
The public response will be reported by presenter Eric Robson in a programme the next Monday.
A major row flared this week between leaders of the livestock and meat industries and the BBC.
The cause is a Radio Times front cover colour picture of a pig drawing attention to a BBC2 television programme on the use of growth promoting drugs in farming.
The cover picture carries the headline “Should this little piggy go to market?” – and at the bottom, printed in a type similar to the Government warning on cigarette packets, are the words – “Health warning: Meat and poultry may seriously affect your health.”
Continue reading Drugs-in-farming programme starts BBC-TV rowFarmers and butchers are preparing to bombard the switchboards of BBC local and regional radio stations after next Tuesday’s Brass Tacks programme on BBC2 about modern practices in livestock farming and meat production. They fear they will be coming under attack and aim to set the record straight.
They are angry that their representative organisations were not consulted during the preparations of the programme and their tempers have been raised further by the front cover of the latest Radio Times.
It shows a piglet with the caption: “Health warning: Meat and poultry can seriously affect your health.”
Continue reading Angry farmers attack BBC programmeA BLACK market operation providing drugs for factory farms could be a danger to health.
This is just one of the claims to be made in a controversial TV documentary next week.
It traces links between the use of antibiotics in farm animals and the increase in food poisoning among humans.
The first is a new series of the BBC’s Brass Tacks programme investigates the increase in factory farming in Britain and links it with major public health dangers in the future.
Continue reading Sunday roast drug threatThe National Farmers’ Union is preparing to send a strongly-worded letter of protest to Mr Ian Threthowan, director general of the BBC, about a forthcoming television programme which will claim that people may be harmed by eating meat from cattle, pigs and poultry which have been treated by veterinary drugs.
Other objections have been made by representatives of Britain’s farm vets, butchers and meat wholesalers who fear that a “Brass Tacks” programme due to be screened on BBC2 on May 8 will unjustifiably scare the public into buying less meat.
Continue reading Protest at drugs ‘scare’
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