This article in Scientific American goes along with the series of links I blogged about earlier about antibiotic resistance and what is being done to combat this medical issue. It seems that the FDA is limiting the usage of antibiotics that can be used on farms.
In industrial farming, antimicrobials are commonly given to farm animals to treat infections, and prophylactically to prevent disease or spur growth. But there is growing concern that excessive use on farms is helping to breed antibiotic-resistant microbes, from Salmonella to Escherichia coli, which are harder to treat when they infect people.
The new rules, to come into effect on April 5, restrict veterinary surgeons to using the two cephalosporin drugs specifically approved for food-producing animals -- ceftiofur and cephapirin -- and ban prophylactic use.
What do you think of this new policy? Is this going to be a positive for human health or will it cause more problems? What issues could this pose to the farms that use antibiotics on a regular basis?
I believe that the idea of no longer using bacteria on the farms is a bad idea. reason being that even if it does cause salmonella for the animals during the slaughtering and fabrication process there is many food inspectors to check the meat and its safety, and if the meat is in anyway harmful to a human they get rid of it. if anything not providing the sick animals with medication it could be more dangerous. - kayleigh
ReplyDelete