Three-fourths of the antibiotics in this country are used on livestock whose owners haven’t shown equal concern about ‘superbugs.’
Voluntary guidelines for pharmaceutical companies will not wean the livestock industry off its addiction to antibiotics.
Yet that’s what the U.S. Food and Drug Administration — which has previously taken tentative steps to curb the agricultural use of antibiotics and is under a judge’s order to carry out existing laws that call for limiting the overuse of two classes of antibiotics — is proposing. Obviously, the agency wants to avoid a protracted legal battle with producers, and its authority is limited by Congress’ repeated refusal to act. But this latest plan falls far short of the decisive action needed to make a difference.
Most of the antibiotics given to livestock aren’t used to treat illness but to quicken the animals’ growth or as a preventive measure to keep disease from sweeping through the crowded pens and cages that are common to industrial agriculture. Doctors have been growing more cautious about prescribing antibiotics for humans because overuse fosters the development of drug-resistant bacteria; last month, for example, the Infectious Diseases Society of America called for a drastic reduction in antibiotic use for sinus infections for that reason. That’s good, but it is of limited use when three-fourths of the antibiotics in this country are used on livestock whose cost-conscious owners haven’t shown equal concern about “superbugs.”
The trend here is amazing. The eco-nazis want to outlaw pesticides, outlaw use of animal anti-biotics, finely processed lean beef while perfectly safe and nutritious is savaged like a camp follower, geneticly modified crops are
scorned, high fructose corn syrup is slandered, eating beef is unpatriotic, chickens should be raised free range, pigs should be given the right to vote, etc., etc. There seems to be no end to the campaign to force the human race to freeze in the winter, sweat in the summer and live off prairie grass in caves, if of course we got an affadavit from the bear that lived there that he willingly moved out. While they decry the cities they want to herd the human race into 150 mile circles of self sufficiency in order to use less fuel for food transportation, limit toilet flushing to once a day, outlaw personal ownership of automobiles, set limits on thermostats in homes at 60f in the winter. They would ration electricity and any other human invention that makes our lives better than the wild animals that live in fear their entire existence. In fact, they see those animals as our equals. How have these nut jobs got into the positions of power and authority they now hold? How have we allowed what is clearly insanity to become a fashionable dogma? This election can be the start of putting those self appointed guardians of the planet back into the asylums from which they escaped. This will be our last best shot to bring back sanity to the American experiment in prosperity. Don’t blow it!!!!!