Alternative Medicine Insight from Vet Experts  1.  Alternative Medicine insights from speakers at the  last American Veterinary Medical Association  Convention.    Click this link or paste it into your web browser:     http://www.paw-rescue.org/PAW/PETTIPS/DogTip_AlternativeMedicine.php    2.  Something you can do to help people, the  environment and animals:    It's easy to take action to hold factory farms  accountable to reduce the pollution they create.  Click here, after reading the details about factory  farming and air/ground pollution below.    http://ga0.org/campaign/epa/forward/wg6w55w49mwjdj5    The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is  aggressively pushing to exempt factory farms from  clean air laws.  Rather than protect the environment,  the agency wants to protect corporations from  government regulation by exempting Concentrated Animal  Feeding Operations (CAFOs) from even having to report the amount of hazardous toxins they release into the  air.  The EPA's reason for ignoring longstanding clean air standards is "to reduce the burden on the regulated community" because they believe it is just too difficult for factory farms to comply with  environmental laws and still make a profit from the  mass slaughter of animals for human consumption.  Those who disagree have until March 27 to let the EPA know.    In Defense of Animals (IDA) wants its supporters to  remind the EPA exactly why these laws were originally  passed and should continue to be enforced; namely,    - Environmental: Animal agribusiness is the number one  cause of  global warming, producing more carbon  dioxide emissions than all motor vehicles in the world  combined. Factory farms (CAFOs) also  produce enormous quantities of animal excrement -- about 130 times the amount of the entire human population. This waste,  which is dumped into open-air lagoons or sprayed on  crops, contains massive amounts of nitrogen which  enters the atmosphere as ammonia, producing acid rain  that contaminates water and soil.    - Health: Factory farms sicken people in communities  where they are built. Noxious gasses from animal waste  cause upper respiratory problems, gastrointestinal disorders, and other serious illnesses. One study  showed that children living near factory farms are  three times more likely to suffer from asthma than kids in other areas.    - Legal: Exempting factory farms from anti-pollution  laws just because they cut into their profits sets a  dangerous precedent. If that happens, then any  industry can argue that complying with federal regulations is too burdensome -- and they would have a case. For instance, while a recent undercover expose  led to the closure of a Chino, Calif. slaughterhouse  and the largest beef recall in U.S. history, the USDA  could simply exempt slaughterhouses from animal  welfare and public health laws "to reduce the burden on the regulated community."    - Economic: Meat, dairy, and eggs are so cheap in the  U.S. because factory farms get agricultural subsidies,  financial incentives, and tax breaks from the  government, allowing producers to profit by maintaining low prices for mass-marketed animal products. This trend of corporate welfare is extended when authorities routinely fail to enforce environmental, public health, and animal protection laws. But it is we the people who pay the hidden health and environmental costs of cheap meat with  our  taxes -- while the animals pay with their blood and their lives.    It's time for the EPA to start doing the job it was created for -- that is, to protect the environment, not the corporations that despoil it! The EPA must  hold polluters accountable to the law, and require  that factory farms report their pollution levels (for  public record and so scientists can measure agribusiness' environmental impact).     For more free tipsheets on dozens of behavior, health,  safety, family integration, and other topics, skim the  Dog Tips index at:    http://www.paw-rescue.org/PAW/dog_tips.php    For excellent books to help with nearly every canine  care issue, as well as cat and other companion animal  topics, see:  http://www.paw-rescue.org/PAW/PETTIPS/DogTip_Books.php