I recently posted on many of the ways which modern animal farming practices put the public at risk (see Here) for things like flu epidemics and antibiotic-resistant strains of bacteria. A (hopefully) major breakthrough occurred last month, when the FDA implemented a new policy banning antibiotic use in the meat industry without a prescription. Current practices involve heavily dosing animals through their feed and with injections to prevent rampant infections from spreading in their dirty, cramped conditions – and the amount of antibiotics used for agriculture is a whopping 70% of the total used each year. This new policy will require farmers to obtain prescriptions specifically for sick animals before they can access antibiotics, which will hopefully drastically reduce the amount of antibiotics being used in factory farms, and reduce the rate new resistant strains of bacteria are adapting. In tests the agency performed on different meat products prior to passing this measure, 81% of all the raw ground turkey, 69% of pork chops, 55% of ground beef and 39% of chicken all tested positive for antibiotic-resistant strains of bacteria.
I say hopefully above because it remains to be seen how well this measure will be enforced, but it’s a step in the right direction!
To view the CNN report on this measure, please follow this link: http://www.cnn.com/2013/12/11/health/fda-antibiotics-farms/
