Cows on Drugs

[groovedaddy]

NOW that Congress has pushed through its complicated legislation to reform the health insurance system, it could take one more simple step to protect the health of all Americans. This one wouldn’t raise any taxes or make any further changes to our health insurance system, so it could be quickly passed by Congress with an outpouring of bipartisan support. Or could it?

More than 30 years ago, when I was commissioner of the United States Food and Drug Administration, we proposed eliminating the use of penicillin and two other antibiotics to promote growth in animals raised for food. When agribusiness interests persuaded Congress not to approve that regulation, we saw firsthand how strong politics can trump wise policy and good science.

Even back then, this nontherapeutic use of antibiotics was being linked to the evolution of antibiotic resistance in bacteria that infect humans. To the leading microbiologists on the F.D.A.’s advisory committee, it was clearly a very bad idea to fatten animals with the same antibiotics used to treat people. But the American Meat Institute and its lobbyists in Washington blocked the F.D.A. proposal.

In 2005, one class of antibiotics, fluoroquinolones, was banned in the production of poultry in the United States. But the total number of antibiotics used in agriculture is continuing to grow. According to the Union of Concerned Scientists, 70 percent of this use is in animals that are healthy but are vulnerable to transmissible diseases because they live in crowded and unsanitary conditions.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/18/opinion/18kennedy.html?th&emc=th

[hedgehog]

1. Does anyone understand the mechanisms involved in using

antibiotics to fatten animals quickly? Is is possible we're also fattening people?

[bemildred]

2. I doubt it, that anybody really understands it, that is. nt

[flvegan]

4. Big part of it is that the antibiotics kill the gut-bacteria in the animals.

Thus, the animals get more nutrients from the feed. Add to that it creates even less need for space, as the amounts of manure are (believe it or not) cut back. This also allows for more crowding. With that crowding would come greater chance for disease...except the animals are already on meds, lessening the likelihood.

Nice, huh?

[Tumbulu]

3. Yes, maybe now that taxpayers are somehow connected to healthcare

this ban will finally be put in place.

The animals with rumens (cows, sheep, goats, etc) have specific microorganisms in the rumens that break the cellulose of plants down and make these tough plants somewhat digestible. When fed grains the microorganisms that get going produce acids that eat holes into the rumen- resulting is a very quick death to the animal (I found this out the hard way when I lost 6 sheep in 48 hours when a friend gave my sheep some grain as a treat). If antibiotics are used, then grain can be fed to ruminants in very high amounts. It is very tricky to put a cow in a feedlot without the use of antibiotics regularly, although if the diet in the feedlot is primarily hay with just a small amount of grain, it can be done. But the animal grows more slowly.

I worm my organic sheep with garlic, which I mix with grain. But without using antibiotics, I start out with about 1/8 lb of grain per sheep and every day add a little bit more until I they are up to about 1/2 lb of grain per 120 lb sheep. Then I can mix the garlic powder in and they will eat it and this kills their worms.