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  • From: "Tradingpost" <tradingpost@lobo.net>
  • To: livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [Livingontheland] Today's Food System: All Drugged Up
  • Date: Sun, 06 Mar 2011 11:33:03 -0700


Today's Food System: All Drugged Up
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/laurie-david/antibiotics-agriculture_b_830061.html

The next time you're feeling sick, think twice before going to your doctor
for answers. Look down at your plate, instead.

Hidden in your hamburger or smoked ham may be something you didn't want or
expect on the menu -- antibiotic-resistant superbugs. Instead of protecting
you from infectious diseases, antibiotics might simply be making you sick.

Just last month, the FDA confirmed that 80 percent of all antibiotics used in
the U.S. go to animal agriculture. No joke, 80 percent! This is true insanity
and scientists fear that this extreme overuse of antibiotics is putting our
children, elderly and families at serious risk.

When antibiotics are used (as they have been since the 1940s), they kill off
all targeted bacteria, except for those that by chance have a favorable
mutation. These survivors go on to multiply, producing a drug resistant army
of bacteria. It's evolution at its finest.

The bottom line? The more we use antibiotics, the more resistant strains
develop. In many cases, these can infect humans, leading to prolonged illness
or even death because the standard treatment no longer works. People stay
sick longer, spreading resistant bacteria to others, all while putting a huge
strain on our medical system.

According to the Natural Resources Defense Council the scientific consensus
is that non-therapeutic use of antibiotics in livestock animals is a serious
threat to public health. Yet, the vast majority (the previously mentioned
astounding 80 percent) of antibiotics used in the U.S. is used on livestock
animals, much of it on animals that are not sick. In fact, the FDA has
recognized, since at least 1977 that the use of some antibiotics (and 80
percent is a heck of a lot more than "some") for non-therapeutic uses in
livestock animals poses a risk to human health because of the rise of
antibacterial resistance. They have acknowledged themselves the danger so its
not much of a stretch to demand the FDA move quickly to withdraw the use of
these antibiotics for livestock animals who aren't sick. If the FDA does not
act quickly, as it should, then Congress should move ahead with legislation
to ban such uses

It's just common sense: antibiotics should be protected, used only when
necessary and in the most effective manner as determined by medical
professionals.

But that's not what's happening. In our corporate-controlled food system,
factory farmers routinely feed antibiotics to their cattle, pigs, chickens
and other animals. Sometimes these antibiotics are meant to cure illnesses
but often they are used to spur growth and weight gain in their animals,
fattening them up for our growing American appetites. Meatless Mondays,
anyone?

And even when antibiotics are needed to actually cure infections in
livestock, these illnesses are anything but natural -- caused instead by
horrible conditions, in which animals are crowded into filthy, confined
spaces, spreading disease at alarming rates, all to keep up with growing
American appetites.

As has been reported, every year more than 90 thousand Americans die from
bacterial infections that have developed a resistance to antibiotics. That's
number exceeds the death toll from AIDS, car accidents and prostate cancer
combined. In many cases, these deaths might have been prevented if only the
appropriate antibiotic still worked.

It's shameful and repulsive that so much of our scientific genius goes into
producing drugs for our livestock -- allowing big factory farming operations
to keep animals in vile conditions, forced to gain weight at excessive and
unnatural rates.

The reckless use of these drugs puts the lives of our children in danger.
When rushed to the hospital, patients deserve to be given the most effective
medicines, not told that the best drugs were already used up on ill-treated
livestock.

There's something seriously wrong with a food system that requires 80 percent
of the country's antibiotics just to maintain itself. This food isn't
healthy, and it's making -- and keeping -- us sick.




  • [Livingontheland] Today's Food System: All Drugged Up, Tradingpost, 03/06/2011

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