Environmental Health Impacts of CAFOs.(Correspondence)(Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations)

doi: 10.1289/ehp.10124

I am concerned about the development and content of the Mini-Monograph on Environmental Health Impacts of Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs) (Bunton et al. 2007; Burkholder et al. 2007; Donham et al. 2007; Gilchrist et al. 2007; Heederik et al. 2007; Thorne et al. 2007). Although I believe that the process of developing these reports was flawed, I will limit my comments to the content of the reports. It is difficult to comment on six separate articles within the word limitations of a letter; therefore, I will make some general comments followed by a few specific examples.

Overall, there was a wide variation between the six articles (Bunton et al. 2007; Burkholder et al. 2007; Donham et al. 2007; Gilchrist et al. 2007; Heederik et al. 2007; Thorne et al. 2007) in both tone and scientific rigor. However, generally the authors did not differentiate between potential risks associated with general animal production--regardless of facility type--and risks associated with CAFOs. Their default was to assign any potential risk to the attribute "CAFO" rather than the attribute "animal." For example, Burkholder et al. (2007) gave the impression that pathogens in manure would not exist in manure from animals raised in facilities that do not meet the definition of a CAFO. The authors of these articles generally…