Meat on Drugs
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"The short answer is overuse of antibiotics...It is livestock producers, however, who use the
vast majority of antibiotics produced in the United States. An estimated 70 percent of
antibiotics and related drugs produced in this country are used for nontherapeutic purposes
such as accelerating animal growth and compensating for overcrowded and unsanitary
conditions on large-scale confinement facilities known as 'factory farms'." (Union of
Concerned Scientists)
"The British epidemic of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), or mad cow disease,
which began in 1986 and has affected nearly 200,000 cattle, jumps to beef-eating humans in
the form of the always-fatal Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (CJD)."
"On most factory farms, animals are crowded into relatively small lagoons. These cesspools
often break, leak or overflow, sending nitrate pollution into water supplies. and drug-resistant
bacteria gases into water supplies. Factory-Factory-farm such as ammonia, hydrogen sulfide
and methane."
"On top of this, the widespread use of antibiotics also poses dangers. Large-scale animal
factories often give animals antibiotics to promote growth, or to compensate for illness
resulting from crowded conditions. These antibiotics are entering the environment and the
food chain, contributing to the rise of antibiotic-resistant bacteria and making it harder to
treat human diseases."
“Most of the microbes that reside in the gut of a cow and find their way into our food get killed
off by the acids in our stomachs, since they originally adapted to live in a neutral-pH
environment. But the digestive tract of the modern feedlot cow is closer in acidity to our own,
and in this new, manmade environment acid-resistant strains of E. coli have developed that
can survive our stomach acids—and go on to kill us.” New York Times Magazine, “Power
Steer” by Michael Pollan, 3/31/02
"A World Health Organization (who) Report on Infectious Diseases published in
2000 expressed alarm at the spread of multidrug-resistant infectious disease
agents, and pointed to food as a major source of antimicrobial-resistant bacteria."
“Most of the antibiotics sold in America end up in animal feed—a practice that, it is now
generally acknowledged, leads directly to the evolution of new antibiotic-resistant ‘superbugs’.
…” New York Times Magazine, “Power Steer” by Michael Pollan, 3/31/02
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