garrick wrote:[Antibiotics are not administered only when animals are sick, they're administered to prevent disease from flaring up even if animals are not sick.
Antibiotics are administered when an animal is sick or after it has recovered from the disease to prevent reoccurrence; those animals will still go through the required withdrawal phase. Healthy animals that have not contracted a disease in the past are not given antibiotics.
But Kremer's red-hot leg ballooned to double its size. A strep infection spread, threatening his life and baffling doctors. Two months of multiple antibiotics did virtually nothing.
The answer was flowing in the veins of the boar. The animal had been fed low doses of penicillin, spawning a strain of strep that was resistant to other antibiotics. That drug-resistant germ passed to Kremer.
Like Kremer, more and more Americans -- many of them living far from barns and pastures -- are at risk from the widespread practice of feeding livestock antibiotics. These animals grow faster, but they can also develop drug-resistant infections that are passed on to people. The issue is now gaining attention because of interest from a new White House administration and a flurry of new research tying antibiotic use in animals to drug resistance in people.
Researchers say the overuse of antibiotics in humans and animals has led to a plague of drug-resistant infections that killed more than 65,000 people in the U.S. last year -- more than prostate and breast cancer combined. And in a nation that used about 35 million pounds of antibiotics last year, 70 percent of the drugs -- 28 million pounds -- went to pigs, chickens and cows. Worldwide, it's 50 percent.
The article is very misleading. First thing to note is the guy who got infected was gored by a boar. His infection was not a result of contaminated meat; the boar was still on antibiotics and was not being prepared for slaughter. The farmer should have gotten treatment after getting gored. Boars are not very clean animals.
The second thing to note is the writer states that overuse of antibiotics in humans and animals has led to an increase in antibiotic resistant infections, killing 65,000 people. This is true (I have had to deal with an antibiotic resistant infection myself), but the vast majority is from the human side of the equation (People getting an infection then taking drugs improperly). I could say that cancer and hopscotch killed a combined 300,000 people last year but does that mean hopscotch is extremely dangerous? No, it means cancer killed 299,999 people and one horrible hopscotch accident took another life. While what the writer wrote is technically true, he packaged it in a way to mislead his audience. Further, most of the deadly animal transmitted antibiotic resistant diseases are caused by direct contact with an animal (ex: a boar inserting its tusk into your leg). It’s important to note that the antibiotics themselves are not causing any diseases; the diseases are already in the animal and have become resistant to the antibiotic, when it is removed they multiply and are much harder to kill the second time around. Also, the diseases that you could get from eating meat specifically (salmonella (causes about 30 deaths yearly, usually acquired from chicken eggs) and campylobacter (not deadly) and maybe a few others) can be avoided by cooking the meat properly (freezing meat can also kill some bacteria).
Here’s a factsheet about antibiotic resistant infections:
http://ecdc.europa.eu/en/eaad/antibioti ... perts.aspxLargest meat recall in history 'only the tip of the iceberg'
Slaughterhouse expert and humane farming investigator reveals the shocking story of greed, neglect, and inhumane treatment inside the US meat industry
329 pages; ISBN 978-1-59102-450-7; Paperback: $19.
Click here for more information.
On Sunday, February 17, 2008 the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) issued its largest meat recall in United States history, less than three weeks after a slaughterhouse worker secretly made a tape depicting violations of federal animal care regulations by a Westland division of the Hallmark Company. Upon investigation, the Humane Society of the United States found animals too sick to walk or stand- called 電owners・by industry- being kicked, beaten, dragged with chains, shocked with electric prods, sprayed in the face with hoses and rammed by forklifts to get them to stand and pass USDA inspection. Of the 143 million pounds of beef recalled, 37 million were likely already consumed. With 20 meat recalls issued last year alone, one of more than 20 millions pounds, Americans are left to question their trust in the USDA and wonder exactly what happens to their food before it enters their mouths.
SLAUGHTERHOUSE: THE SHOCKING STORY OF GREED, NEGLECT, AND INHUMANE TREATMENT INSIDE THE U.S. MEAT INDUSTRY by Gail A. Eisnitz ($19, Prometheus Books, 2006) is the first book of its kind to explore the impact that unprecedented changes in the meat packing industry over the last 25 years have had on workers, animals and consumers. It is also the first time ever that workers- in this case, individuals who have spent a combined total of more than two million hours on the kill floor- have spoken publicly about what痴 really taking place behind the closed doors of America痴 slaughterhouses. Depicting inadequate inspection and control of slaughterhouses and the use of 電owners,・author Gail A. Eisnitz penetrates the veil that hangs over meat production and shocks readers with what she has found.
Extraordinarily sensationalistic book excerpt aside, there are two things to note about the recall. First, the plant was shut down; they weren’t allowed to walk away from that. Second, a lot of that meat had already been consumed and it’s unlikely that the meat was contaminated.
Sometimes something slips through the cracks and its bad news, but it happens in every single industry. Life is risky.
There's a growing amount of evidence that a meat-based diet actually quite unhealthy for people. But instead of the perspective of "vegetarian diets are healthier than meat-based diets" that you may have heard before, we're going to present to you information that you may not have been aware of: the filthy and unsanitary conditions of slaughterhouses contaminate almost all meats that we eat. "... Increasingly, meat covered with feces, abscesses, tumors, hair, and maggots has moved into the human food system; some plants are infested with cockroaches and rats; and condemned meat is taken out of trash barrels and returned to production lines."
The third site is just not a trustable source. It’s a website that belongs to an animal activist group (CARE) and the article is completely lacking in legitimate sources. The only source they ever reference is the book in excerpt number two which is written by another activist with very questionable sourcing of her own. I don’t think you would trust something written by the beef industry saying that all meat is always safe, animal activists are the other side of that coin.
I don't really trust the USDA and FDA to honestly know that these antibiotics and hormones don't have an adverse effect on the human body, for one their tests are most likely short term but have tests ever been taken to study the long term effects of these hormones and antibiotics on the human body?
The hormones in question have been studied since the 1950s and have been in widespread use in the US and Canada since the early 80s. There has been no evidence of any ill effects found in humans from any of the hormones.
The US, Canada and other major beef-producing countries believe that such a scientific consensus exists on the safety of beef produced using hormones. In addition to nearly fifty years of scientific study in individual countries and the widespread and long term use of hormones in beef production in over twenty countries – i.e. there is evidence from an experiment writ large – a wide range of international scientific bodies, of which the EU is a member, have judged hormones to be safe when used according to good veterinary practice. Over time, these have included the Joint Expert Committee on Food Additives (JECFA) of the World Health Organization and the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations; the Codex Committee on Residues of Veterinary Drugs in Food and the Codex Alimentarius Commission. Further, two major internal EU initiatives – the Lamming Committee scientific expert group and the 1995 Scientific Conference on Growth Promotion in Meat Production – concluded there was no evidence of health risk from the use of growth hormones. The basic assertion of the US and Canada is that this represents as close to a scientific consensus as one is likely to get.
http://are.berkeley.edu/courses/EEP131/ ... dHobbs.pdfI also did a quick search on Toxline to see if anything came up related to the hormones in question and found nothing.
