hundreds, and the overall risk of contracting the prion disease from beef appears to be very small Controversies in Modern Meat Production Meat production is big business In the United States just a few decades ago, it was second only to automobile manufacturing Both industry and government have long underwritten research on innovative ways to control meat production and its costs The result has been a reliable supply of relatively inexpensive meat, but also a production system increasingly distant from its origins in the family farmer’s pasture, pigsty, and chicken coop, and troubling in various ways Many innovations involve the use of chemicals to manipulate animal metabolism These chemicals act as drugs in the animals, and raise worries that they may influence human health as well Other innovations involve the animals’ living conditions, which have become increasingly artificial and crowded, and their feed, which often includes reprocessed waste materials from various agricultural industries, and which contributed to the origin of mad cow disease and the persistence of salmonella in chickens The scale and concentration of modern meat production, with hundreds of thousands of animals confined in a single facility, have caused significant water, soil, and air pollution Enough consumers and producers have become uneasy about these developments that there is now a modest segment of the industry devoted to meats raised more traditionally, on a smaller scale, and with more attention to the quality of the animals’ life and meat Invisible Animals Historian William Cronon has written ... agricultural industries, and which contributed to the origin of mad cow disease and the persistence of salmonella in chickens The scale and concentration of modern meat production, with hundreds of thousands of animals confined in a single facility, have... segment of the industry devoted to meats raised more traditionally, on a smaller scale, and with more attention to the quality of the animals’ life and meat Invisible Animals Historian William Cronon...human health as well Other innovations involve the animals’ living conditions, which have become increasingly artificial and crowded, and their feed, which often includes reprocessed waste materials from various