Veterinarians respond to the AVMA’s inaction on Ventilation Shutdown+
October 26, 2021
José Arce, DVM, President
Panel on Animal Depopulation
American Veterinary Medical Association 1931 North Meacham Road, Suite 100 Schaumburg, IL 60173-4360
Dear Dr. Arce and Members of the Panel on Animal Depopulation:
On August 15, 2021, the Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association (JAVMA) published a Special Report (Baysinger et. al) detailing a pig depopulation practice known as ventilation shutdown (VSD). The procedure involves sealing off barns and filling them with heat and steam until the pigs inside die of hyperthermia or heat stroke. The practice gained use during the height of the pandemic last year, when the slaughter industry’s failure to protect workers from COVID-19 resulted in closures of slaughterhouses and meat packing plants. It earned significant media attention when an Iowa Select Farms whistleblower, Lucas Walker, reached out to activists about stocking density concerns at the facility. With Walker’s help, activists discovered the plan to use ventilation shutdown at the facility and placed cameras and audio equipment to document the event. As a result, they were pursued by authorities and are now facing criminal charges.
Horrified by the ethical implications of killing healthy animals by essentially roasting them alive, over 1,500 veterinarians and 3,500 veterinary professionals signed on to Veterinarians Against Ventilation Shutdown, asking the AVMA to reclassify ventilation shutdown as “not recommended” in the depopulation guidelines. However, those calls have found a surprising degree of resistance from the AVMA, which seeks to protect the practice.
Letters to the Editor were submitted to JAVMA in response to Baysinger’s special report. Unfortunately, the JAVMA Editor-In-Chief’s reply stated they were ending the debate and would not accept any more letters on the subject. Instead, they continue sharing only supportive perspectives.** In fact, on September 15th -- during Animal Pain Awareness Month, ironically -- JAVMA published another article about VSD, in which no dissenting opinion was presented. The article ends with Dr. Michael Zager stating “We have African swine fever in the Dominican Republic. There’s avian influenza. There are going to be times when this is needed, like it or not.”
**After publication of this open letter, JAVMA published 2 letters to the editor on November 1st, 2021 that were critical of ventilation shutdown. The authors were given a chance to respond and were given 870 words in their response when others were alotted only 500 words.
Given that many livestock veterinarians feel it is inevitable that producers will have to resort to ventilation shutdown again, we must conclude that animal agriculture in its current state necessitates extreme welfare concerns. Therefore, it is time for our profession to question the systems that require defense of such a practice.
Angela Baysinger is the lead author on the paper “A case study of ventilation shutdown with the addition of high temperature and humidity for depopulation of pigs” published in JAVMA on August 15th 2021. She is the Animal Welfare Lead for Merck Animal Health, which sells vaccinations and other medications for pigs and has an interest in protecting the industry.
While animal agriculture exists, we should seek to improve the lives of animals and protect them from such suffering. Many veterinarians disagree with the AVMA and livestock veterinarians who believe that future use of ventilation shutdown is inevitable. With planning, we can decrease the risk of depopulation being necessary at all and avoid use of this method in particular.
International organizations such as the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) do not support any form of ventilation shutdown even in animal disease control situations. The Animal Welfare Institute recently reviewed alternative methods to avoid having to resort to ventilation shutdown in the future. Suggestions include stockpiling captive bolt guns, as well as regular guns and ammunition, use of mobile electrocution units, use of high-expansion, water-based foam, and the conversion of slaughter houses to carcass production that can continue to process animals with fewer than half their normal staff.
One factor that necessitated the urgent need for depopulation is that high stocking densities are the norm among commercial pigs farms. This not only results in poorer welfare and increased risk of disease, but results in less flexibility when a supply chain disruption occurs. Animals who have little living space to begin with quickly face intolerable overcrowding when they remain on-farm beyond their normal slaughter date. Producers then have less time to respond or to utilize AVMA-approved methods. In Baysinger’s paper, they stated “under normal conditions, the farm described in the present report stocked growing-finishing pens to provide 0.632 m2/pig (6.8 feet2/pig).” The World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) Terrestrial Code Article 7.13.13 states “space allowance should be managed taking into account different areas for lying, standing, feeding and elimination.” However, the stocking densities described in the report do not allow for separate lying and elimination areas as recommended. Prioritising agility and adaptive capacity over production efficiency will reduce reliance on ventilation shutdown and improve welfare outcomes.
In Baysinger’s report, the authors state, “the farm had previously established a crisis management team and participated in mock animal disease outbreak exercises with state and federal regulatory agencies because of concerns about the possible introduction of African swine fever.” One questions why they had not prioritized stockpiling the necessary equipment needed to depopulate their animals using depopulation methods classified as “recommended” by the AVMA. The paper states:
“The farm began to research the feasibility of other preferred methods of depopulation. Both captive bolt and gunshot were considered unfeasible because of a lack of availability of the necessary resources (ie, captive bolt guns and charges and guns and ammunition). Electrocution was not considered a viable option because a farm-tested system had not been built in the United States, and engineers who were consulted on the topic suggested that it would take ≥ 6 months to develop a prototype.”
Now that the industry recognizes the importance of preparing for the need to depopulate large numbers of animals using the most ethical methods available, it should be a priority. Therefore, continuing to list ventilation shutdown as an option in constrained circumstances is not necessary. But even if the AVMA were to reclassify ventilation shutdown as “not recommended,” producers could still opt to use the method, unfortunately, but they would not be able to state to the media and the public that they were using “AVMA-approved methods” or “veterinary-approved methods.” During 2020, producers cited the fact that VSD+ was “permitted under constrained circumstances” by the AVMA as justification for their actions, without objection by the AVMA. The change would mean that our profession would no longer lend legitimacy to a practice that came to use because of poor planning.
World-renowned researcher in humane slaughter methods, advisor for the AVMA depopulation guidelines, and professor at Colorado State University, Temple Grandin recently authored a paper discussing ventilation shutdown in which she states, “The author watched a video of the interior of the barn and there was little behavioral reaction from the pigs. To do it correctly would require considerable engineering expertise.” The video she watched was from research by Baysinger et. al. in which barns were carefully engineered to pump in steam so as not to scald the pigs with hot water. However, one must acknowledge that dying from heat stroke causes undue suffering, even if scalding does not occur.
In an email dated October 9th, 2021, which she consented to being published, Grandin stated “the high level of engineering and expertise that would be required to correctly conduct this process is so great that it should not be used...The use of an electrocution trailer would improve both animal welfare and reduce costs associated with severely damaged buildings.”
That engineering expertise, among other things, makes ventilation shutdown not feasible for the average farmer to implement in any way that does not result in prolonged suffering.
In contrast to the “little behavioral reaction” of the pigs that Grandin observed in the Baysinger report, the video and audio recordings of the ventilation shutdown at Iowa Select Farms showed pigs vocalizing loudly throughout, punctuated by frequent intense screams. Total time to silent on the audio recording was 1 hour and 47 minutes; however, the published segment of audio begins with increased vocalization, a sign that the ventilation shutdown process may have already been in progress.
Iowa Select Farms utilized converted poultry barns to perform ventilation shutdown. In the Baysinger report, nearly a quarter of a million pigs were transported to four converted barns, which subsequently had to be destroyed. Transporting animals even short distances is not recommended during a foreign animal disease outbreak, because of the potential to spread the disease and create new outbreaks.
Even in Baysinger’s ideal scenario for ventilation shutdown, which required significant expense, $10,490,480, the requirement that 95% of the animals die within 1 hour was not met. To meet the requirement, the researchers had to start the clock at 130 degrees, which was 15-94 minutes after ventilation was shut down and operators added in heat. Instead, the mean length of time should be reported as 90.4 minutes for nursery pigs and 110.3 minutes for finishing pigs. One incident lasted over 2.5 hours, which poses a substantial welfare concern. In addition to the welfare costs, the barns had to be destroyed afterwards due to the extensive modifications that had to be made as well as the damage from the heat and steam, which resulted in a substantial economic loss.
The United States taxpayers were also burdened with the economic cost of depopulation in 2020. The USDA Pandemic Livestock Indemnity Program compensated producers $55.31 for suckling nursery pigs less than 50lbs and up to $258.57 for boars and sows weighing 451 lbs or greater that had to be depopulated. Based on those numbers, the farm that depopulated 243,016 pigs in the Baysinger report received an estimated $23-$34 million from this program.
Freedom of Information Act requests of the United States Department of Agriculture-Agricultural Marketing Service (USDA-AMS) documents disclosed an industry desperate to protect its interests and advance a “unified response.” An email exchanged by pork industry leadership, including those heading the National Pork Board, National Pork Producers Council, Iowa Pork Producers Association and American Association of Swine Veterinarians revealed a threatened industry looking for a way to obfuscate, “we definitely need to come up with a new name to describe this” states the author. This unprecedented animal welfare crisis exposed an industry, reliant on cover up culture, coming to grips with how to respond as they were “getting questions from McDonald’s.” Additionally, they inaccurately refer to depopulation as “euthanasia,” a term that should be reserved only for the painless ending of a life of one suffering from an incurable and painful disease—at the same time desperate to legitimize the practice stating they need to prioritize “support for appropriate approved euthanasia processes such as Ventilation Shutdown Plus.” When, instead of seeking openness and transparency, efforts are made to obscure the truth, prevent open dialogue and silence alternate perspectives, ethics are compromised, and progress is delayed.
The COVID-19 pandemic has posed challenges to many professions, but has also been a catalyst for positive change. The public expects veterinarians to lead in the area of animal welfare and is watching closely how we respond to this crisis. We must remember we entered this profession with a desire to help animals, not corporate interests. The veterinary profession sets the standard for how animals are treated by society. The decisions made by our institutions have the power to create lasting effects which can inspire compassion towards animals as well as our fellow humans. Conversely, institutions also have the power to rationalize and legitimize practices that pose significant welfare concerns–further entrenching systems that cause substantial harm to animals and humans. We encourage the AVMA to focus on creating evidence-based policies and recommendations that improve the health and protect the welfare of the animals under our care. Re-classifying ventilation shutdown to “not recommended” is a move in the right direction. Working together, we can ensure this never has to happen again.
Signed,
Crystal Heath, DVM*
Daniela Castillo, DVM
Cora Kübra Catak, DVM
Louise Harvey, DVM
Joanne Lefebvre Connolly, DVM
Kristen Weber, DVM
Sherstin Rosenberg, DVM*
Ernie Ward, DVM
Alejandra Arbe, BVSc
Andrew Knight, MANZCVS, DipECAWBM (AWSEL), DipACAW, PhD, FRCVS, PFHEA
Armaiti May, DVM
Tatjana Mirkovic, Bsc, DVM, DACVIM
Debra Teachout DVM, MVSc
Pamela Corey, DVM*
Heather Carleton, DVM*
Amy Allen, DVM*
Kaila Helmer, DVM*
Bela Kisamov, DVM*
Serena Holmes, DVM
Eva Ortenberg, DVM
Susan Whittred, DVM
Jennifer Doll, DVM
*AVMA Member
Please, add your name to our letter.
