70% of the antibiotics used in the U.S. are not prescribed for sick people, but are routinely fed to healthy animals in overcrowded factory farms.
Many of the same antibiotics fed to animals are deemed critically important in human medicine by the FDA, including penicillin, tetracyclines and sulfonamides. In recent years, public health experts say there has been an alarming increase in the number of bacteria that have grown resistant to antibiotics, leading to severe, untreatable illnesses in humans. In 2009, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that nearly 3% of salmonella tested was cephalosporin-resistant.
The FDA has tried to limit the use of antibiotics in agriculture since 1977, but its efforts have repeatedly collapsed in the face of opposition from the drug industry and farm lobby.
The European Union banned the feeding of antibiotics and related drugs to livestock for growth promotion in 2006.
In 2008, the FDA issued an outright ban of cephalosporin for livestock. But the agency withdrew the plan after strong opposition from industry groups.
In 2010, the FDA issued voluntarily guidelines urging the judicious use of these drugs. But those have yet to be finalized. Last year, several environmental and public health groups sued the FDA to force it to stop the industry from adding certain antibiotics to the feed of healthy animals.
Last Wednesday, the FDA finally said it would limit the use of cephalosporin in cattle, swine, chicken and turkey. This is just a first step. The meat industry must stop giving antibiotics to healthy animals.
As discussed previously, meat production also creates more greenhouse gasses than transportation.
Nobody expects everyone to go “whole hog” and become vegan, but we would all be healthier if we cut back on our consumption of meat. Here are some helpful tips.
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