Bob Lawrence: The long view on food system reform "We’re forced to take the long view on food system reform. I think we all realize how much work is left." By Christine Grillo
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arlier this year, Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) paid tribute to physician, professor, and activist Dr Bob Lawrence, who co-founded the organization in 1986 and has taken part in many international investigations of human rights abuses. The tribute fell during the 25th anniversary year of another organization, one that Lawrence founded—The Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future. Its mission is to support and advance a globally healthy, equitable, and sustainable food system. It seemed like a good moment to ask him to reflect on the Center's 25-year legacy, what it has accomplished, and where it's heading. A few themes emerged as he considered the food systems reform movement and the fight to change the factory farm model. Primary among them was his resolve to keep at it. Even when progress seems slow, he says, the fight itself is important. The Center has spent 25 years shining a light on the problems, paving the way to find the levers to address them.
A history lesson
Before diving into the Center's accomplishments, he shared a history lesson about a 1966 multilateral UN treaty, the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. The treaty states that all humans have the right to food, water, health, housing, decent work, and more. Although President Jimmy Carter signed it in 1979, the US Senate has still not ratified it, and Lawrence finds this fact very telling. In the US, especially among Republican lawmakers, there's a lot of controversy around the idea that food, water, and health are rights. Food, water, and health should be goals; they insist, not rights. This pushback provides context for the uphill battle that is food system reform. "We're forced to take the long view on food system reform," says Lawrence. "I think we all realize how much work is left." The Center for a Livable Future (CLF) was born of a conversation between Lawrence, former dean of the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health Alfred Sommer, and Henry Spira, an animal rights crusader who dreamed of reforming factory farms. So far, Spira's moonshot has not been realized.
Factory farm model
The factory farm proved to be a model too entrenched in the American corporate landscape to be affected significantly by data, science, or public health advocacy. Also known as CAFOs (concentrated animal feeding operations), a term created by the US Department of Agriculture, these operations have remained impervious to regulation, with a few important exceptions. The Center characterized this model of production as "industrial food animal production" (IFAP) to underscore the industrialization at the heart of the problem. "We certainly haven't shut down factory farms. But we've raised awareness and forced them reluctantly to adopt modest reforms." One such reform came on the heels of CLF research into what happens as a result of feeding arsenicals to chickens, a
42 wholefoodliving.life | Summer 2022
Dr Bob Lawrence of the Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future has a deep seated passion on the need for food reform. He's spent years trying to change the US food system and has had some wins along the way but in this interview with Christine Grillo he makes one point very clear, there's still a long way to go. Lawrence presents an interesting perspective on the way industrial food production impacts public health and democracy and believes that enlightened consumers can pave the way to a brighter future. practice commonly used for preventing illnesses that arise from overcrowding in their cages and for growth promotion. The research showed that an inorganic form of arsenic—a known human carcinogen—accumulates in chicken breast meat and increases the risk of cancer in humans. In 2013, on the heels of this research, citing consumer health concerns, the Federal Food and Drug Administration (FDA) suspended the marketing and sale of Roxarsone and two other arsenic-based drugs. Lawrence contends that getting arsenicals out of the veterinary therapeutic stream was a victorious moment.
Antibiotic resistance
The Center also helped draw attention to the role of IFAP in antibiotic resistance, a threat that still hangs over us today. Writing about this problem in 2013, Lawrence noted the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's report claiming that, annually in the United States, two million people become infected with antibiotic-resistant bacteria, and 23,000 people die of the infections. Producers routinely administer antibiotics to the entire lot of their animals for "disease prevention" and also works to promote growth. A better, safer practice would be to reserve the drugs and use them selectively to treat illness in the livestock because the more widely these drugs are used, the more likely it is that "superbugs" will evolve. The FDA's 2013 response to research by CLF and partners into antibiotic resistance fell short of CLF's goals; the agency asked the industry to voluntarily curb the misuse of antibiotics. The White House's response in 2014 was disappointing, as well: President Obama issued an executive order recognizing the problem, but the order had no teeth. To see CLF's strong efforts on antibiotic resistance result in "voluntary guidelines" was disheartening. But Lawrence insists that the Center can claim victory for helping to get the issues out in the open. While he's not putting all his eggs in the "human behaviour change" basket, Lawrence has a deep faith that enlightened consumers will make enlightened choices. He believes that
