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Worker health an important concern on hog farmsBy Jennifer Bremer
Producing pork, while keeping employees and the public healthy at the same time, is an important challenge pork producers face, according to Dr. Kelley Donham, director of Iowa's Center for Agricultural Safety and Health. Donham, who grew up on a hog farm, realizes that conditions are better than they used to be, but also believes they can be better yet. "In order to keep pork producers in business, it is important for us to deal with concerns with health care and quality of health in hog buildings," he said. Respiratory illnesses in pork producers are about 21 percent as compared to 14 percent in non-pork producers. Reducing these numbers is a major concern for health care providers and producers. "Dust, ammonia, and endotoxins cause airway concerns with bronchitis, asthma-like conditions or organic dust toxic syndrome," said Donham. Producers who have experienced some of these problems should consider replacing old flooring with new plastic flooring to prevent dust. Different feed ingredients should be considered, also. Adding oil to feed mixtures can reduce dust up to 50 percent. The use of high pressure washing on a regular basis can prevent some of these problems as well, but Donham says that endotoxins will be higher during the washing period and cautions should be taken accordingly. Endotoxins are present in the outer cell wall of certain bacteria and are very inflammatory, causing coughing and severe headaches. Through proper management of dust, many of the problems created because of it can be prevented or lessened, he said. Drug-resistant staph infections are becoming more common. First a problem in hospitals, staph has now become a problem with athletes as well. "The concern is that this staph is also in the livestock industry and being passed from the livestock to the workers," he said. "Some buildings will be totally clear, while others may have up to 50 percent of the pigs being carriers of staph, as well as workers being carriers." Donham said the exact ecology of the staph bug is not known, but many health professionals are working on finding the answers. "We are somewhat unsure of how and where the bacteria survive and the exact transmission from animals to humans," he said. "We believe it exists mostly in the nose and throat of pigs and likely in the same places for humans." Risto Rautiainen, deputy director of the Great Plains Center for Agricultural Health, developed organic dust toxic syndrome when he was growing up on a farm in Finland. He continues to have problems if he enters a hog building with poor ventilation. "More people have started to wear respirators while working in hog facilities, which has helped prevent problems with this syndrome," he said. He agreed with Donham that pork producers need to reduce the occurrence of respiratory problems in order to reduce health care costs. In order to help with worker safety issues, Rautiainen and Donham's organizations have developed a worker safety web training available at www.porktraining.com. This website allows producers to train their workers via Internet and is accessible at various sites without travel involved. Programs such as this, as well as the Certified Safe Farm program, which both are involved with, help farmers make their operations a safer place to work. The Certified Safe Farm program is a multi-faceted agricultural intervention research program designed to reduce the rate of injuries and illnesses in the agricultural population. The program consists of an occupational health screening, an on-farm safety review with performance standards, a personalized education, and incentives such as insurance discounts or agribusiness discounts. "Since 1996, about 700 farms have become Certified Safe Farms, of which one-third were pork farms," he said. "Reducing problems is the key and the resources are available for producers to use," Donham added. Jennifer Bremer can be reached by phone at 515-833-2120 or by e-mail at jbremer@hpj.com
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