Letter: Earlier letter misrepresents Smithfield foods
(03/03/22 5:00am)
While we were impressed with a recent letter writer’s attempt to turn accusations against Smithfield’s N.C. hog farms into evidence, the facts don’t support her unfounded charges. In citing a study of the health of southeastern North Carolinians who live near hog farms, for example, she failed to mention it was funded by an avowed opponent of the state’s pork industry. More importantly, the study’s authors admit they didn’t establish a causal link between health and living near farms. (Read the Conclusion on the eighth page.) In fact, they didn’t look at the health data for communities directly next to hog farms, only data from Zip codes in the region.