Perils of Overusing Antibiotics
The Link to Food Animal Production

In human health care, antibiotic use is generally confined to the treatment of illness. In contrast, antibiotics often are used on industrial farms not only to treat sick animals but also to offset crowding and poor sanitation, as well as to spur animal growth. In fact, up to 70 percent of all antibiotics sold in the U.S. are given to healthy food animals.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration, U.S. Department of Agriculture and the CDC testified before Congress that there was a definitive link between the routine, non-therapeutic uses of antibiotics in food animal production and the crisis of antibiotic resistance in humans.

Moreover, the American Medical Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics and other leading medical groups all warn that the routine use of antibiotics in food animals presents a serious and growing threat to human health because it creates new strains of dangerous antibiotic-resistant bacteria.

More than 25 million pounds of antibiotics a year are used as a non-therapeutic treatment to artificially speed up the growth of food animals and to compensate for the effects of unsanitary conditions on the farm.⁸ This makes the U.S. one of the biggest users of antibiotics in food animal production in the world.⁹ Most of the antibiotics used on farms in the U.S. are obtained and used without the consultation of a veterinarian. The lack of oversight, coupled with the magnitude of administration of antibiotics for non-therapeutic purposes, has potentially serious consequences for human health.

Antibiotics with your meat?
It is not healthy for humans to consume this meat. The response of the European Economic Community to the routine feeding of antibiotics to U.S. livestock was to ban the importation of U.S. meat. European buyers do not want to expose consumers to this serious health hazard. By comparison, U.S. meat and pharmaceutical industries gave their full and complete support to the routine feeding of antibiotics to livestock, turning a blind eye to the threat of disease to the consumer.

Unknown to most meat-eaters, U.S.-produced meat contains dangerously high quantities of deadly pesticides.

The common belief is that the U.S. Department of Agriculture protects consumers' health through regular and thorough meat inspection. In reality, fewer than one out of every 250,000 slaughtered animals is tested for toxic chemical residues.

-- from Pulitzer Prize nominee John Robbins' book Diet for a New America.