Summary
This opinion article was written by a veterinarian and an animal welfare scientist employed by Farm Sanctuary, an accredited and nationally recognized farmed animal rescue and non-profit. The article details the brutal technique, called ventilation shutdown plus (VSD+), used by the animal agriculture industry for the mass killing of farmed animals. VSD+, as described by the authors, is essentially death by heat stroke and is considered inhumane because it can take longer than an hour for animals to die. The authors reference case studies and undercover investigations that highlight the cruelty in this method of killing, which was used on chickens during the 2022 avian flu outbreak and on pigs during COVID-19 supply chain issues. VSD+ has been approved by the American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA), yet the authors argue that the AVMA’s guidelines for mass killing, which are used by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), are too vague in their interpretation and benefit the industry more than they do animals. While the authors note that the USDA has recommended that the animal agriculture industry reduce the number of birds housed together at one time in order to alleviate the transmission of avian flu, the USDA has not enforced this or taken action in that regard. The authors conclude by asking the AVMA to remove VSD+ as an acceptable method of killing farmed animals, as this method would be considered inhumane to use in other species, such as dogs and cats.