Article

Feeding Animals Antibiotics: Not Helping U.S. Meat Export

January 21, 2011

Publication: The Huffington Post

Author: David Wallinga, M.D.

At a 2010 Congressional briefing sponsored by Rep. Louise Slaughter, I warned the continued and routine overuse of antibiotics in U.S. meat production could be shooting the global competitiveness of that industry in the foot.

Data finally released last month by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) do little to allay those fears, while confirming the findings of a decade-old report from the Union of Concerned Scientists: More than 70 percent (74 percent, in fact) of all U.S. antibiotics are being used in food-producing animals. Most of our "medically important" antibiotics, like penicillins, tetracyclines and erythromycins, are used in animals, not people. And, nearly all of these are routine uses in feed for animals that are not clinically sick. Rather than to treat disease, these antibiotics are used for growth promotion or to avert sickness in animals that are stressed from the confined conditions in which they are raised.

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Read the full article Feeding Animals Antibiotics: Not Helping U.S. Meat Export on The Huffington Post Web site.