BUT REMEMBER: WITHOUT REGULATORS, WE’D ALL BE EATING POISONED MEAT. The Failure of the FDA: Why We’re Still Using Antibiotics on Livestock. “For more than 35 years, the FDA has recognized that giving antibiotics to farm animals poses a risk to human health, yet the agency has done almost nothing to stop it. Indeed, it has mastered the art of making inaction look like action.”
UPDATE: Ric Locke emails: “The FDA fulfills its intended purpose marvelously well. That is, it keeps riffraff competitors from bothering the Big Important Food And Drug Companies, and provides a near-unending set of opportunities to cross a politician’s palm with silver.”
ANOTHER UPDATE: Researcher William Eichinger thinks this is misleading:
With regards to your comments on the FDA. Let’s be real for just a moment. We use a great deal of animal products, that is the reality. For example, we use roughly 700 million eggs a day in the US. Can you imagine supplying that many eggs each and every day without massive use of automation? The use of automation pretty much precludes “free range” egg layers. So we end up with buildings in which 5000 or so hens are laying. The reality is that if one of those hens gets sick, all of them do (think of preschoolers, the same effect. One of them is sick and the whole class is sick). Entry into these buildings is highly controlled and contrary to the article, the operations are quite hygienic. People who enter wear clothing that limits contact. These farmers use the drugs to keep them healthy. Ascribing nefarious motivations is not productive and is insulting to what these people are trying to do. We haven’t even talked about the health issues associated with the alternative, “free range” eggs; eggs that are laid pretty much everywhere and are decidedly not hygienic. Not to mention issues related to finding, collecting, and processing these eggs at anything like reasonable prices.
Similar arguments for hogs and cattle. I don’t like the situation either. But it is unreasonable to expect farmers to produce the amount of animal products that we use every day without “factory” type farming. These farmers are doing the best they can (and while I am no fan of the FDA, just banning the use of these drugs is not going to be helpful).
Bill
Just for the record, part of my research concerns the airborne emissions from these facilities. So I have met and worked with quite a few of these people. They try to do the “right thing”, but just what that is is not always clear.
Noted.