Erica Anne Geppi: Silencing whistleblowers

In response to Will Coggin’s Jan. 27 letter: “Don’t protect animal abuse”: Whistleblowing employees have long played a vital role in exposing animal cruelty, unsafe working conditions and environmental problems on industrial factory farms.

The agribusiness industry’s response to these abuses has not been to prevent them, but rather to prevent the American public from finding out about them in the first place.

It’s not surprising to hear from Coggin on this, as the absurdly named Center for Consumer Freedom receives support from animal abuse industries like puppy mills and factory farms.

Factory farming interests want to keep consumers in the dark about food safety, animal welfare and other important issues.

Anti-whistleblowing bills, like HB 405, put the American public in danger by granting factory farms, which are already sorely lacking transparency, the power to silence whistleblowers from exposing unethical activities.

This story was originally published February 3, 2016 at 5:10 PM with the headline "Erica Anne Geppi: Silencing whistleblowers."