29 Mar Antibiotics in our meat
Meat producers have fed growth-promoting antibiotics to food animals for years. Recently, scientists have raised concerns that, in conjunction with the general overuse of antibiotics in humans, this use of “sub-therapeutic” levels of antibiotics in food animals may lead to serious health risks for people.
If a group of animals is treated with a certain antibiotic over time, the bacteria living in those animals will become resistant to that drug. The problem for humans is that if a person ingests the resistant bacteria via improperly cooked meat and becomes ill, he or she may not respond to antibiotic treatment.
This op-ed in today’s NYT is a good summary of the health implications: https://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/28/opinion/antibiotics-and-the-meat-we-eat.html
Concern about the growing level of drug-resistant bacteria has led to the banning of sub-therapeutic use of antibiotics in meat animals in many countries in the European Union and Canada. In the United States, however, such use is still legal. The World Health Organization is concerned enough about antibiotic resistance to suggest significantly curbing the use of antibiotics in the animals we eat. In a recent report, the WHO declared its intention to “reduce the overuse and misuse of antimicrobials in food animals for the protection of human health.” Specifically, the WHO recommended that prescriptions be required for allantibiotics used to treat sick food animals, and urged efforts to “terminate or rapidly phase out antimicrobials for growth promotion if they are used for human treatment.”