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McLibel Support Campaign
c/o 5 Caledonian Road
London N1 9DX UK
Tel/Fax +44-171 713 1269
Trial Summary Jan 95 to Sept 95, Part 1
(Trial Summary up to January 95 is also available)
Contents:
Part 1
GENERAL
NUTRITION & ADVERTISING
DAMAGE TO THE ENVIRONMENT
PACKAGING -
LITTER -
FORESTS
RAINFORESTS
ANIMALS
CATTLE
CHICKENS
Part 2
FOOD SAFETY
EMPLOYEES AND TRADE UNIONS
---------------------------------------------------
The High Court libel trial brought by the $26 billion a year
McDonald's Corporation against two unwaged London Greenpeace
supporters began in June 1994 and is now expected to last until
Spring 1996. It is already the longest libel trial in British
history and looks likely to become the longest civil trial ever.
The libel is alleged to have occurred in 1989/90. Approximately
180 witnesses from the UK and around the world are giving evidence
in court on all the issues in the case, namely:
- The connection between multinational companies like McDonald's,
cash crops and starvation in the third world.
- The responsibility of corporations such as McDonald's for damage
to the environment, including destruction of rainforests.
- The wasteful and harmful effects of the mountains of packaging
used by McDonald's and other companies.
- McDonald's promotion and sale of food with a low fibre, high
fat, saturated fat, sodium and sugar content, and the links
between a diet of this type and the major degenerative diseases in
western society, including heart disease and cancer.
- McDonald's exploitation of children by its use of advertisements
and gimmicks to sell unhealthy products.
- The barbaric way that animals are reared and slaughtered to
supply products for McDonald's.
- The lousy conditions that workers in the catering industry are
forced to work under, and the low wages paid by McDonald's.
- McDonald's hostility towards trade unions.
Here follows a summary of some of the evidence from the trial
given between January & July 1995:
GENERAL
THE CASE - Despite being flown over as the Corporation's most
senior representative in order to give the background as to why
they brought this libel case, Robert Beavers did not know when the
action was begun or who made the decision or how it was made. He
believed that the UK President Paul Preston was responsible for
the initial decision. He claimed the factsheet "tarnished our
image, brand and reputation", but the Defendants asserted that
McDonald's "has a bad reputation in society". He accepted that
all the main 'defamatory' criticisms in the Factsheet had been
levelled at McDonald's by others in the past, in the USA and
elsewhere, and "are in the public domain in America to some
extent" but could not think of an example where they had sued
anyone for libel. The Defendants then stated that: "The reality
is the McDonald's Corporation could not sue anybody in the United
States for the text of this Factsheet. They are joining this
action in the UK because they want to use this court as a platform
all over the world."
NUTRITION & ADVERTISING
Robert Beavers, Senior Vice President and member of the Board of
Directors of the McDonald's Corporation since 1984, was challenged
with the London Greenpeace Factsheet extract which states that a
diet high in fat, sugar, animal products and salt, and low in
fibre, vitamins and minerals is linked with cancers of the breast
and bowel and heart disease (which has been characterised by
Richard Rampton QC as the most defamatory passage in the leaflet).
He was asked to compare it with an extract from McDonald's UK's
own pamphlet, written in 1984. He replied: "I can't spot any
difference". In fact, he later criticised their own extract,
mistaking it for the 'defamatory' London Greenpeace one!
Mr Beavers explained that McDonald's have pioneered production
methods and "created an industry" which has "helped to expand the
eating out sector". Half of all meals in the USA are now eaten
outside of the home, he said - an increase from 1 in every 3
around 15-20 years ago. He said this was a worldwide trend, that
"lifestyles are changing" and McDonald's have played a part in
that. In countries where there had previously been no hamburger
tradition, he said, advertising was 'part of the parcel' in
establishing company's influence on the diet. Their food was
advertised as 'nutritious' he said.
Mr Beavers stated that, back in the 1960's, McDonald's were "the
trendsetters in the food industry, in particular the fast food
service industry, in utilising national television"... "It was at
that time that we introduced Ronald McDonald". He accepted that
"no other marketing factor has been more important in
distinguishing McDonald's as a leader in fast food than its early
decision to appeal to children through advertising." He agreed
that "in the early days [the company] probably did" spend more of
its advertising budget on children's ads, and stated "within a
short period of time Ronald was one of the most well known,
popular characters in America".
DAMAGE TO THE ENVIRONMENT
PACKAGING
Robert Beavers (US Senior Vice-President) was
challenged on why McDonald's is still using ozone-damaging blowing
agents (HCFCs) in their packaging in the Philippines, Turkey and
Hong Kong, 15 years after the US Congress banned aerosol sprays
because of concerns about the ozone layer The Defendants referred
to a 1995 Corporation leaflet distributed in Hong Kong admitting
HCFC use by McDonald's H.K. under the heading "We Care About The
Ozone Layer"!
Although Mr Beavers recognised the benefits of in-store customer
recycling of their packaging, and that the working of it "does not
cause difficulty", Mr Langert (a previous McDonald's witness) had
said "less than 10" stores out of 10,000 are doing this.
LITTER
Usama Siddique and Stacey Stump, the former and current
managers of McDonald's, Kings Road, London, gave evidence about
the problems of company litter. They recognised there had been
residents' complaints about litter over a number of years -
complaints to the store, McDonald's Head Office and to the local
Council. This had continued despite Mr Siddique laying on a
'candle-lit dinner' at the store for local residents in order to
try to have a 'good rapport'. A file of dozens of residents
associations' letters of complaint was shown to the court. One
series of complaints culminated in a letter from Government
Minister Nicholas Scott (local MP) to McDonald's President Paul
Preston.
Approximately 1,500 sales a day were take-away custom - around 50%
of the store's business, rising to 60% in the summer. The store
was providing "something like 10,500 potential items of litter"
(such as bags, straws, cups and napkins etc) every day. Mr Stump
recognised that "there is a lot of McDonald's litter" and admitted
that there were "times when the volume of business is so great and
generates so much litter that [the store] cannot effectively deal
with it in the course of a day". He also said "I have seen
McDonald's litter in a lot of places, not just around my
restaurant". Both managers claimed that 'trash walks' (litter
patrols) to pick up all litter around a set route of nearby
streets were done approximately every 30 minutes. (They claimed
this had been done since the store opened, and happened at every
store). They agreed that much litter ended up far from the store,
or in local residents' basements, under cars or in bushes etc,
where it would not be picked up by a litter patrol. Mr Stump said
they were "trying to control the situation, not alleviate it 100%,
that would not be possible".
Colin McIntyre, Press Officer of a local residents association and
former executive member of the National Union of Journalists gave
evidence for the Defendants. He explained that at the beginning
of the nineties, when McDonald's planned to open a store in Kings
Road, London, local residents opposed the plan (unsuccessfully),
in part because they predicted it would create litter problems.
He said the problem of litter had come up regularly at residents
association meetings. He said that since the McDonald's had
opened, rubbish in his street had got 'incredibly worse' and
stated "I would say approximately 70% of litter is McDonald's".
He produced photos that he had taken as evidence, showing
McDonald's litter in his street and the surrounding area.
Initially the company carried out litter patrols two or three
times a day, but this did not last. As part of it's application
for a late opening licence, the company had assured the local
council that regular litter patrols were in operation. Mr
McIntyre said that "this was a blatant lie". He said that despite
continuous complaints to McDonald's, there had been no litter
patrol down his street for two and a half years. Apart from the
council, the only people he had seen picking up litter were his
neighbours. He added "I have seen one McDonald's litter cleaner,
it was enough of a joke we all made a note of it in our diaries".
Mr McIntyre told how local residents associations were also angry
about the store causing increased traffic, noise and cooking
smells and how they eventually set up an action group to consider
legal action. "I object to litter in front of my house and in my
basement" he said. "I do not really see why I should be condemned
to litter for the rest of my life".
Professor Graham Ashworth, Director-General of the Tidy Britain
Group ('TBG'), witness for McDonald's, said that the TBG is an
agency which is recognised and funded by the government, but also
is part funded by company sponsorship. He said that McDonald's
were members of the TBG and had sponsored some of its activities.
This amounted to around 200,000 pounds per annum. They then got
the company logo on TBG leaflets. Companies such as McDonald's
became members of the TBG by invitation. Coca Cola were also
members, along with Shell, who Professor Ashworth agreed had been
convicted and fined more than once for pollution incidents.
Professor Ashworth admitted that the Tidy Britain Group had
eventually changed its name from the Keep Britain Tidy Group after
"it had become apparent" in the late 1970's and early 80's that
Britain was no longer tidy. It was, he said "strange to have an
organisation talking about keeping a situation that did not
exist". He also admitted that "the rise of fast food business"
was "certainly a factor" (note: McDonald's UK was launched in
1974). He said that this was part of a "great increase in
packaging" in general.
Professor Ashworth accepted that "when there are planning
applications for new fast food stores (including McDonald's),
litter is regularly a concern of objectors". He agreed that
McDonald's was in the "top 1 or 2%" of all companies whose
products end up as litter. He agreed that there were other
problems with litter apart from the fact that people don't like
looking at it. For example packaging, including polystyrene, "has
been swallowed by animals in mistake for food", causing the
wildlife to starve to death. Litter also ended up being blown
from the streets into rivers and the sea.
Professor Ashworth agreed that "as much packaging waste as
possible" should be removed from the waste stream. He added that
it was "obvious common sense" that the order of priorities in
dealing with packaging and waste was (1) prevention, (2) re-use,
(3) recycling, (4) incineration (preferably with energy recovery),
and (5) landfill (note McDonald's consumer packaging ends up in
landfills or as litter). As a result of the Environmental
Protection Act 1990, local authorities were now able to issue
'Street Litter Control Notices' to force businesses to clean up
their litter within 'a reasonable distance' of their premises. In
Germany, local authorities have the power to levy a tax on
companies on the use of disposable packaging - Professor Ashworth
revealed that similar legislation is now being considered in the
UK.
FORESTS
Theo Hopkins, involved in forestry management and also
an independent researcher on the degradation and destruction of
temperate and boreal forests, gave evidence for the Defence on the
damaging effects of modern industrial forestry. This related to
McDonald's annual use of hundreds of thousands of tons of paper
packaging in Europe and the USA. In general, Mr Hopkins said,
large scale commercial forest exploitation has lead to the
progressive reduction of natural, 'old-growth' or ancient forests,
which are still being logged all over Europe, North America and
elsewhere. This has generally continued despite protests and
official 'protection' measures. He explained how monoculture
plantations have tended to replace natural forests, but could not
match such forests in their biodiversity, or in social,
ecological, cultural or spiritual value. Therefore, they could
not be described as 'sustainable' forests, even under official
international guidelines.
The use by McDonald's of products utilising paper sourced from
such forests was, Mr Hopkins said, "self-evidently damaging to the
environment". Only since the late 1980's has the forest industry
publicly had to recognise these problems, faced with publicity and
pressure from the public. In particular, in contrast to the
ecologically rich natural forests, plantations have very few tree
species and less variety of insects, fungi, animals, plants and
birds. This is due not only to the character of commercial
plantations, but also to damaging techniques of forest management
- the effects of planting non-native species, age uniformity,
clear cutting, machine use, removing decaying trees, etc. Mr
Hopkins said that "in 1989/90, at the time of the alleged libel,
there was virtually no concern by government and forest industry
for ecological sustainability". Whilst some problems are now
being recognised, this has only just started to have some effect
on the 'forest floor'.
Mr Hopkins outlined some particular environmental problems in
countries which provided the source for McDonald's packaging in
North America and Europe: USA & Canada - there is much logging
and clear cutting of natural forest; Czech Republic - forests are
being cut down faster than they can be regenerated; Finland &
Sweden - very little ancient forest remains; hundreds of species
dependent on forest ecosystems are endangered by modern forestry
methods; UK - since the Second World War, over 40% of what little
ancient woodland existed then has been felled, largely being
replaced by conifer plantations (which lead to acidification of
watercourses).
Mr Hopkins quoted expert concerns over the scale of world pulp
production (which had "increased by 5 times over the last 40
years", being "the major use of timber" from managed forests), and
the effects of pulp production "due to the highly polluting
milling processes". In order to protect forests, he said the
first priority is to reduce paper consumption, especially in rich
countries which consume vast quantities. He said that significant
quantities existed of alternative plant sources of paper fibre
(eg. kenaf, hemp, bagasse, cotton waste...), often of better
quality than wood pulp.
RAINFORESTS
David Walker, the Chairman and owner of McKey Foods,
gave evidence for McDonald's. McKeys, a former subsidiary of
McDonald's, has been the sole supplier since 1978 of the company's
UK hamburgers, now one million per day. Mr Walker admitted that
he had personally organised the direct import of 5 consignments of
Brazilian beef for McDonald's UK stores in 1983/4 - sold to them
by the Vestey's plant at Barretos, Brazil. A letter from Mr
Walker to the managing director of Weddels (a Vestey subsidiary)
was quoted in court. It revealed that the imports were a matter
of great controversy. Mr Walker confirmed that he had written the
letter, which stated that Prince Philip, the President of the
World Wildlife Fund, had recently met George Cohon, President of
McDonald's Canada, and had said (quoting from the Walker letter
17/5/83): " 'So you are the people who are tearing down the
Brazilian rainforests and breeding cattle' to which the reply was:
'I think you are mistaken', whereupon HRH said 'Rubbish' and
stormed away". Following this, the letter stated that Fred
Turner, the Chairman of the McDonald's Corporation, "issued a
worldwide edict that
no McDonald's plant was to use Brazilian beef". The same letter
revealed that Bob Rhea, then Managing Director of McDonald's UK,
had given Walker permission to use the Brazilian beef imports.
The imports went through, and were kept secret from Prince Philip,
from the World Wildlife Fund, from the BBC (who were sued the
following year) and from Friends of the Earth (in meetings in
1985). The whole scandal only came to light due to a handwritten
letter mistakenly disclosed by McDonald's solicitors in a bundle
of other documents to the McLibel Defendants last year.
ANIMALS
David Walker of McKey Foods admitted that "as a result of the meat
industry, the suffering of animals is inevitable".
PIGS - Ashley Bowes, Director of GD Bowes Ltd (McDonald's pig meat
supplier), said that Bowes owns roughly 100,000 pigs. 40,000 were
reared on their own farms; the others were reared on a contract
system. The company also buys about 300,000 pigs each year from
approximately 80-100 other suppliers, to be slaughtered at the
company's abattoir.
During his opening speech at the start of the trial, Mr Rampton QC
had claimed that the London Greenpeace Factsheet was libellous
because it stated that some of the animals reared for McDonald's
products - especially chickens and pigs - spend their lives in
factory farms with no access to the open air. He asserted that
"Whilst it is true that a lot of chickens live in large sheds, it
is not true of pigs. The pigs used for McDonald's food in this
country at least, live in the open air in fields."
Dr Gregory (expert witness for McDonald's) had visited Bowes in
order to prepare his expert report for the court, but had only
been shown the outdoor system. When questioned by Richard Rampton
QC, Mr Bowes' testimony concentrated on the outdoor system of
rearing that the company used, rather than the indoor. But under
cross-examination by the Defendants, Mr Bowes admitted that there
were "two separate buying channels for pigs" (indoor and outdoor)
and that McDonald's bought indoor pork and would only get outdoor
pork if there was some left over. Asked if it was the case that
McDonald's were not willing to pay as much as other customers to
purchase 'free range' meat, Mr Bowes replied "I wish they would".
Sows bought for indoor breeding stock would have been born and
reared indoors for the 8-10 months before the company got them, Mr
Bowes admitted. He said his own company farms had never used dry
sow stalls. He said "I shall welcome it when they are banned
totally in this country" (in 1998) and said he was against the use
of them because of "the restriction on the sow... I personally
think it is not a good method of animal production for an animal
to be shut in the stall for all that time"... "It is not
comfortable". However, he admitted that about 12% of their
suppliers still used the dry sow stalls, and that about 7 years
ago up to 50% would have been using them. Dry sow stalls are
narrow metal barred stalls (about 2.1 metres by 0.6 metres) in
which the sow cannot turn around, and can only stand up or lie
down. The floor is concrete or slats or can be both. After
mating the sow is taken to the dry sow stall and remains there
until she goes to the farrowing crate (nearly 4 months).
The company's own farm has 3 indoor breeding units. The sows are
kept in groups of 6 or 12 until two days before they are expected
to give birth, when they are moved to farrowing crates. The
crates are slightly wider than the sow and about 0.5 - 0.75 metres
longer. Mr Bowes admitted that it was impossible for the sows to
turn round. The sows endured 3= to 4 weeks in the crates, until
the piglets were weaned. Three days after weaning, the whole
breeding cycle was started again. Mr Bowes said the "sows have on
average 7 litters" before they were slaughtered at about 3-4
years.
Bowes weans piglets at 24 days. They are then reared in what he
called "indoor kennels", with roughly 20 weaners in each kennel,
until they reached 30kg. At least until a few years ago, Mr Bowes
was aware of some suppliers using the flat-deck system for rearing
weaners. The weaners would be kept "15 or 20" in an area "roughly
12 by 14 feet", normally on a metal or plastic mesh floor without
any bedding. At 30kg (around 9 or 10 weeks), the pigs were
transferred to indoor "finishing units", where for the last part
of their lives there was only 0.52 square metre of floor space per
pig, plus an enclosed and roofed dunging area. They remained in
the finishing units until they reached 90kg liveweight (at around
22 or 23 weeks old), when they were sent for slaughter.
Pigs were slaughtered at a rate of 220-240 an hour at the
company's own slaughterhouse. They were stunned using "head only
stunning". When Dr Gregory (expert witness for McDonald's) had
visited the plant, he calculated that the current used to stun the
pigs was 0.45 amps. The Government's Codes of Practice state that
for head only stunning the current should be a minimum of 1.3
amps, otherwise the pig "is unlikely to be stunned effectively".
Mr Bowes claimed that Dr Gregory's figure was wrong because he
hadn't taken into account the fact that Bowes sprayed the piglets
with water before stunning, which he said "improved the
conductivity". Dr Long, for the Defence stated that he had "a
great deal of concern" about this, because there was a danger that
"the current tracks round the conducting wet surface instead of
going through the more resistant part of the head", so the pig
"would not be properly stunned and would be stuck while it still
had a sense of feeling". Mr Bowes admitted that some pigs were
stunned with the tongs "on each side of the neck". The Codes of
Practice state "electrodes should not be applied behind the ears
or on each side of the neck, otherwise the animal may be paralysed
without being rendered unconscious and may suffer severe pain".
Mr Bowes said that his company had used growth promoters (such as
clenbuterol) until "about 5 years ago" when they were banned by
the EC. He admitted that until that time "it was fairly standard
practice in the industry".
CATTLE
Timothy Chambers, Quality Assurance Manager from Midland
Meat Packers Ltd (the largest of dozens of abattoirs supplying
beef for McDonald's hamburgers) said that 600 - 800 animals are
killed there daily. Cattle are transported there live "from all
over the country", sometimes hundreds of miles. His company, he
said, "care about the animals' welfare, for commercial reasons as
much as anything else", because if they are "subjected to stress"
prior to slaughter the meat can become dark and "aesthetically
unpleasing", and therefore "devalued quite considerably". They
supply ex-dairy cows for McDonald's use - the company's own expert
witness admitted in the witness box that such cows lived a life of
particular stress and hardship. The court had heard that McKey's
had calculated that McDonald's used beef from one in twelve (8%)
of all cattle slaughtered in the UK.
Mr Chambers admitted his company did use electric shock goads to
move cattle around, contrary to claims by McDonald's that this
practice was banned by their suppliers. Company documents stated
that one of their concerns is to prevent "animals escaping". Mr
Kenny (McDonald's Senior Quality Assurance Supervisor) asserted
that McDonald's had a policy against the use of electric goads to
move cattle, but was unaware that their largest supplying
slaughterhouse was still using such goads.
Dr Alan Long, an independent researcher for over 40 years, gave
evidence for the Defence. He had studied at first hand conditions
for cattle and pigs on farms, at markets, in transportation and
slaughterhouses. His evidence was that animals had been turned
into production 'machines', subject to stress and distress,
disease, abuse, and a short and totally unnatural life. Dairy
cattle (as used for McDonald's burgers) have a particularly
exploited existence based on continuous forced pregnancies and
almost constant lactation until exhausted, and then transported
under extreme stress to be 'burgered' at 5 or 6 years old. "Cows
kept without such stress have a life span of 25-35 years," he
said. Cows showed signs of great distress when their calves were
taken from them at a very young age, frequently mooing and
bellowing, sometimes for several days. A whole series of what are
termed 'production diseases' affected dairy cows - effectively
brought on by "excessive pressures of production". These included
mastitis (a painful udder condition) which affected about 35% of
dairy cows in Britain. Dr Long said output from a modern dairy
cow is approx. 5,500 litres a year, about twice what it was at the
end of the 1940's. Sometimes the strain on the udder caused it to
drop and then, in order to avoid kicking the udder, the cows would
walk in an unnatural way which caused lameness.
In Dr Long's opinion, intensively reared pigs (which McDonald's
use) generally suffer a similarly unpleasant fate. At the end of
the 1980's, over 50% of sows spent nearly all their lives in
stalls and crates, with no freedom of movement, unable even to
turn round. He criticised animal slaughter practices stating that
noise and handling methods (including use of goads) led to high
levels of stress and even terror. He was also highly critical of
inefficient stunning methods. 'Humane killing' is a 'lie' he
said. He believed that 'consumption of such cruelly derived foods
is unnecessary' and that whilst he would welcome any improvements
in conditions for the animals, they had a right to a life of
dignity and freedom - to relax and to root in the open air, to
play, to socialise, and to rear their young.
As an expert biochemist and nutritionist, Dr Long had further
concluded that "growth boosters and other 'performance enhancers'
may be masqueraded as animal health products". Diseases caused by
modern farming methods, and the drugs used to combat them not only
cause problems for the animals but also risks for human health too
(such as BSE). He shared concerns about the risks of eating meat
containing antibiotic, hormone, and pesticide residues. He also
said that modern livestock production causes much pollution (from
silage effluents and slurry), especially in the dairy, poultry and
pig industries.
CHICKENS
Mark Pattison, Group Technical Manager of Sun Valley
Poultry Ltd (a subsidiary of Cargill) ('SVP'), gave evidence for
McDonald's about the conditions under which chickens were reared
to produce the meat for chicken McNuggets and McChicken
sandwiches. 27 million chickens are reared every year in Europe
to supply meat to McDonald's. About 20% of SVP's turnover is
devoted to McDonald's custom.
Dr Pattison said that SVP hatches chicks 4 days a week "in the
order of 200,000 chicks each day". Eggs that do not hatch out are
put through the macerator, which he agreed might include chickens
still alive in the eggs. The company kills an additional 200-300
unwanted chicks each day, by gassing them with carbon dioxide.
Chicks are transported to the broiler units when they are a few
hours old. When they arrive, the chicks are routinely given
antibiotics in their feed for the first week of their lives in an
attempt to reduce infectious disease. Around 550 broiler sheds
are used by the company, approx. 110 were company owned and 440
were run by contractors. Dr Pattison said "For broilers we
normally have 20-25,000 [birds] in a modern shed" of "14,500
square feet". Broiler houses were generally stocked with roughly
twice as many males as females with a partition between them.
Females are taken out for slaughter at 42 days old, weighing
approx. 2kg. The males were slaughtered at 52 days, weighing
approx. 3kg. Throughout their lives there was never any
"opportunity to go outside" Dr Pattison admitted. He agreed that
'farmyard' chickens "can live up to 5 to 10 years".
Despite his being on the committee of the Farm Animal Welfare
Council which produced the Report on the Welfare of Broiler
Chickens (for the Government), Dr Pattison accepted that SVP are
not complying with its recommendation that the 34kg per square
metre stocking density "should not be exceeded at any time during
the growing period". The stocking density at SVP is "about 36.5kg
per square metre". He accepted that the birds "have less space
each than an A4 sheet of paper", but said "I do not believe it is
cruel". Dr Pattison said "economics are a very important factor,
of course" in why the company had not reduced stocking density.
Dr Pattison said SVP "normally run our sheds at a lighting level
between 10 and 20 lux", with 20-30 minutes of darkness in any 24
hour period. The FAWC report recommends a minimum of 20 lux with
at least 30 minutes of darkness every 24 hours.
The average mortality rate to 52 days is around 6-6.5% he said.
30-50 birds "would be one day's mortality" for a shed. Ascites
disease was "one of the major causes of mortality" in flocks Dr
Pattison said, accounting for "10-15% of the total deaths". He
agreed it was caused as a result of the rapid growth of broilers
with the result that they were "too big for their lung size". He
said "this only occurs in broiler chickens". Dr Pattison also
admitted that from 1989-92 Gumboro disease was a common problem.
He said between 1989-91, Sun Valley "were losing 2.5% of all our
birds every week" "over and above the normal mortality". He
agreed that "broiler houses provide the ideal conditions for the
rapid spread of viral diseases like Gumboro". Chickens suffered
from other health problems including leg weaknesses (which Dr
Pattison admitted were often a consequence of breeding birds for
weight, and also lack of exercise) and hockburns (10% of chickens
are currently affected). From their arrival to 5 days before
slaughter, the bird's food contained growth promoters, Dr Pattison
said. "The ones normally used are Zinc Bacitracin, Virginia Mycin
or Avo Parcin" which are "antibiotic compounds". He agreed that
"there is a greater chance of leg problems the faster the chickens
grow".
Birds were caught and loaded into crates in modules and
transported by lorry to the slaughter plant (an average distance
of 25-30 miles, sometimes up to 70 miles). Catchers were
instructed to carry up to 6 birds in one hand, holding them by one
leg. They were crammed 18-30 birds to a crate of approx. 3ft x
2ft x 10 inches. Dr Pattison said that the kinds of injuries
which birds may suffer in the process of catching included
dislocation of the hip joint (which may cause haemorrhage), broken
legs and crushed heads (if their head was caught between the crate
and the module when the drawers were being shut). Dr Pattison
claimed such injuries were not common. However, defence witness
John Bruton (a former catcher for Sun Valley) said that such
injuries were a regular occurrence as the catchers were not given
enough time to take care with the birds, despite voicing their
concerns to the company. This was particularly so after the
company reduced the number of catchers to cut costs. A team of 6
catchers was expected to load a lorry with between 4-6000 birds,
about every 45 minutes.
See Trial News 1 for report of Dr Gregory's evidence on the
problems he witnessed with slaughter methods at SVP. Dr Pattison
claimed SVP had since installed a new stun bath and had "virtually
eliminated the problem of pre-stunning shocks" which he said "used
to be a big problem in the old design of stunning baths".
Keith Kenny claimed McDonald's was concerned about animal welfare
and would 'discontinue' any supplier not complying with official
Codes of Practice. However, their supplier Sun Valley Poultry's
practice of keeping chickens over the official maximum stocking
density didn't worry him. He said "in my opinion, the birds in
Sun Valley do not suffer". Eggs used by McDonald's are supplied
by Oasters Ltd, who keep chickens in battery cages. Mr Kenny said
he considered keeping chickens in battery cages with much less
space than an A4 sheet of paper to be "humane". He said he had
visited Oasters and "the birds seemed to be very happy".
Clare Druce, researcher for the Farm Animal Welfare Network,
testified for the Defence that the "modern broiler chicken is a
genetic freak, the product of generations of selection for fast
growth. This selection has shown a marked lack of concern for the
birds' well-being." "Birds are frequently diseased, lifeless and
crippled," she added, and "suffer from painful and crippling leg
weaknesses" due to their unnatural weight, and also suffer from a
number of common diseases. Some of these diseases "may remain
sub-clinical yet cause serious diseases in humans eating
contaminated meat," especially in "the young, pregnant, old and
immuno-compromised".
Ms Druce stated that the broilers' "living conditions are
unacceptable, being unsuited to the birds' needs and insanitary"
with "overcrowding, dim lighting, inadequate ventilation, and
filthy litter". The broilers' parent stock are made to suffer "a
state of acute hunger for extended periods" to get them to
reproduce satisfactorily. Additionally, she questioned the
effectiveness of electric stunning and neck cutting during chicken
slaughter, as well as all aspects of the rearing, transportation
and slaughter process imposed upon hundreds of millions of
chickens every day in this country. In her opinion "welfare
problems" were due to "thinking only of profit and quick growth,
with no regard whatsoever for the behavioural patterns or needs or
the feelings of the birds".
As a result of her own research, including raising former battery
and broiler chickens, Ms Druce had concluded that chickens
"ancestral patterns are never, never outbred, never lost by
changes in habitat - they are still there, precisely the same".
This only served to underline the cruelty of modern systems and
the right of chickens to live a natural life.
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U.S. McLibel Support Campaign Press Office
PO Box 62 Phone/Fax 802-586-9628
Craftsbury VT 05826-0062 Email dbriars@world.std.com
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