Administration Seeks to Restrict Antibiotics in Livestock

[babylonsister]

Administration Seeks to Restrict Antibiotics in Livestock

By GARDINER HARRIS
Published: July 13, 2009


WASHINGTON — The Obama administration announced Monday that it would seek to ban many routine uses of antibiotics in farm animals in hopes of reducing the spread of dangerous bacteria in humans.

In written testimony to the House Rules Committee, Dr. Joshua Sharfstein, principal deputy commissioner of food and drugs, said feeding antibiotics to healthy chickens, pigs and cattle — done to encourage rapid growth — should cease. And Dr. Sharfstein said farmers should no longer be able to use antibiotics in animals without the supervision of a veterinarian.

Both practices lead to the development of bacteria that are immune to many treatments, he said.

The hearing was held to discuss a measure proposed by Representative Louise M. Slaughter, Democrat of New York and chairwoman of the Rules Committee. It would ban seven classes of antibiotics important to human health from being used in animals, and would restrict other antibiotics to therapeutic and some preventive uses.

more...

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/14/health/policy/14fda.html?_r=1&hpw

[BonnieJW]

1. That will only work if we stop feeding grain to cattle.

They need to eat GRASS and they develop all kinds of medical problems when fed grain, necessitating administering antibiotics. We have totally screwed up the cattle industry because of greed: cram as many of them as you can into feedlots, feed them as much grain as possible (to fatten them up) and then send them to slaughter. Grass fed, grass finished cattle don't need medication because they're doing what they're supposed to do: graze on pasture.

[Karenina]

2. . .