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FOOT IN MOUTH DISEASE The stench of death hangs heavily over England as more than a million cows, sheep and pigs are slaughtered, burned and buried while the Foot and Mouth epidemic is sweeping across the country. Incredibly, most of these animals are healthy, but are killed anyway just in case they carry the virus. It is a desperate effort to contain this highly contagious disease, but the program has already failed, because the disease meanwhile has spread to various other countries including France, the Netherlands and Argentina. The killing fields are largely out of photographic range, but take place in sheltered areas such as huge tents. The cadavers are then picked up with front-end loaders and piled into trucks. One particularly haunting image was a load of sheep being dumped into a truck with one of the sheep clearly still alive as it was kicking with its legs.The freshly dug trenches, the countless thousands of carcasses, the billowing black smoke above it all are eerily reminiscent of Nazi extermination camps. As we were about to release the first issue of eye-openers, news reports about the foot and mouth epidemic were spreading as quickly as the disease itself. Of the countless reports we have seen and heard, not one mentioned why the outbreak occurred in the first place and is spreading like wildfire. The reason for this plague is the same as for Mad Cow Disease: animals are forced to live in very unnatural and unhealthy environments. When animals or people are forced to live under extremely crowded conditions, epidemics are inevitable. It is nature's way of balancing species with their environment. To calm the public and protect the multi-billion dollar livestock business, government and industry representatives first claimed that humans are immune to the disease. But in April (2001) news media in Europe and North America reported that several people in England have contracted Foot and Mouth Disease and a film clip was simultaneously released showing a man in the 1960's who had also contracted the disease and had survived it. It is interesting to note that official government statements also first claimed that Mad Cow Disease could not spread to humans, but today there is no longer any doubt that Mad Cow Disease can be transferred to people after all. It is just called by a different name: Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease, but it is equally fatal (See OUR FATAL FOOD). It is typical of corporations and governments to make and subsequently retract assurances of public safety and represents a perfect example of  foot in mouth disease. The ultimate irony is that millions of animals are raised and slaughtered under barbaric conditions for a product that no one needs. A meat diet is an unhealthy diet because meat is commonly spiked with hormones, antibiotics and a wide variety of chemicals. (See our article MEAT: THE DEATH DIET) Foot and Mouth Disease is a contagious febrile disease that is caused by a virus and affects cloven-hoofed animals such as cattle, swine, sheep, goats, and deer, often causing epidemics. The disease is characterized by a sudden rise in temperature, followed by an eruption of blisters occurring in the mouth, on areas of tender skin such as the udder in females, and on the feet; blisters may also appear in the nostrils. The blisters grow larger and then break, exposing raw, eroded surfaces. Eating becomes difficult and painful, and because the soft tissues under the hoof are inflamed, the animal invariably becomes lame and may shed its hooves. Livestock raised for meat lose much weight, and dairy cattle and goats give less milk. Often the disease kills very young animals and causes pregnant females to abort. Considerable progress has been made toward developing an effective vaccine against Foot and Mouth disease, but the cost of vaccinating all susceptible animals would be prohibitive (approximately $1 billion annually in the US alone). Moreover, the vaccine would not eradicate the disease. Consequently, exposed animals are slaughtered, because it costs less than to vaccinate them. HOME