Wants livestock industry to use antibiotics just for the health of the animals and to remove from general livestock feed
Not only does the livestock industry foul waters with livestock waste, destroy public lands and habitat, and contribute the greatest to greenhouse gas emissions, it also threatens the health of humans by feeding antibiotics to livestock. They aren’t using it simply to protect the health of the animals instead, they use it to increase growth and reduce feeding which results in the creation of antibiotic resistant bacteria. Those bacteria are responsible for the deaths of many people.
This is a classic example of externalizing costs so that the livestock industry can continue to use confined animal feeding operations or CAFO’s to raise livestock at cheap prices. These cheap prices come at the expense of air and water pollution and human health. It is unsustainable.
Of course the livestock industry is already screaming that there is no science to back up the claims of the FDA who released guidelines which say that these operations should not be using antibiotics in such a way but rather just in targeted cases where it is needed for the health of the animal.
FDA takes steps to limit use of antibiotics in livestock.
BY Tom Laskawy – Grist
Ken Cole
Ken Cole is a 5th generation Idahoan, an avid fly fisherman, wildlife enthusiast, and photographer. He is the interim Idaho Director for Western Watersheds Project. We do not accept unsolicited “guest” authors or advertising.
If you live in the vicinity of a feedlot, you have to wonder if that infection you got will respond to a normal course of antibiotics. Will it be like the days before they were discovered?
You just die.
we haven’t eaten any beef or commercially grown meat of any kind for a while now . .not that we are vegetarians just wary of commercial food products of all kinds. Americans vote with their pocketbook. Judging by the constantly new and false “green” labels the food industries are using we may be having an effect. . . . . it may not be the economic down turn but people who have turned away from the way things are going in the food industry. For instance we found a great bottled drink called Just Water with minerals in our area and were buying it until one day I noticed in small print that it had been bought by Pepsi and now had the usual poison sweetners in it . UGH. How could they turn a great product into junk overnight?
As an alternate to crap ….. and to get the original low stressed quality meat from an animal the Indians said gave them more power than any other animal …. I am making my quarterly herbivore fed bison meat run out West in two days. Stops in Denver, Wyoming, Billings, Bozeman and Missoula. Give a call or e mail. Ralph has my contact info….or I can give it on this site if it is within the “rules” of this blog.
Bob that is a great suggestion. My house has taken up eating bison which we can find around here and if we were closer to you, or had a freezer and didn’t go to Baja for so many months of the year you would be our first choice. As it is the local market sells some bison burger, which we love and I bet it is not anywhere near what you offer in quality.