The Spread of Superbugs

Today, my dad sent me another article from the New York Times by Nicholas D. Kristof about the use of antibiotics in the food industry. Agricultural businesses vastly overuse antibiotics in the feeding of their animals, leaving human beings vulnerable to disease. The industrial use of antibiotics does serve a purpose - as we learned in Michael Pollan's "The Omnivore's Dilemma," medicating livestock helps them to grow faster. Additionally, cattle are put on an all corn diet - a food which their stomachs cannot properly digest. By adding antibiotics into the mix, the cows do not experience as much pain. In essence, we are drugging up the animals on industrial farms to benefit ourselves - we can produce more and produce it faster.

As we are learning, though, this exploitation of animals can potentially have immense consequences on us as consumers. As the article states, 70 percent of antibiotics in the United States is used to feed healthy animals and 14 percent are used to treat sick livestock. A large majority of our drugs is being pumped into the food business, which is leading to disease that we cannot control. Despite this, Congress and the Obama Administration are refusing to cut down on the use of antibiotics in the raising of livestock. The agricultural industry is far too dependent on these drugs.

True, the resulting cheaper meat is very convenient, but is this worth the toll on human health? With no sign of slowing in the use of antibiotics in the food industry and the consequent resistance to them, is a lethal pandemic inevitable?

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/07/opinion/07kristof.html?emc=eta1