California's War on Drugged-Up Dairy Cows

A California dairy farm just got busted. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recently caught Vander Schaaf Dairy in Escalon, C.A. abusing antibiotics in its animals. According to Food Safety News, the FDA has issued a written warning to the offending dairy.

According to the FDA, Vander Schaaf sold a dairy cow last April for slaughter. The day after the cow was sold, its tissues were sampled. Liver tissue showed the presence of an antibiotic used at 7.068 parts per million — the FDA's limit of the antibiotic residue in edible tissues is 0.1 parts per million.

The dairy's misuses of other antibiotics were also questioned by the FDA. According to the dairy's own record-keeping, these other drugs were not being used as directed on the label, and only a veterinarian with a legitimate reason is allowed to administer the drugs in a way that differs from directions on the label. This misuse is particularly concerning, as certain strains of E. coli have become resistant to one of the misused drugs, ceftiofer. What were Vander Schaaf's vets thinking?

Earlier this week on Change.org, we brought you new information about the strengthening link between overuse of antibiotics in livestock and so-called "superbugs," virulent infections that oftentimes don't respond to antibiotics. An overhaul of animal conditions in factory farms is necessary to control both the spread of disease and the spread of drug-resistant bacterial infections in humans and animals. The World Health Organization considers these superbugs one of the top three threats to human health. One of the more frightening infections, Methicillan-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), kills 19,000 people in the US annually.

I know I'm preaching to the choir when I say that an overabundance of antibiotics doesn't belong in a dairy cow. One group that really ought to understand this concept is the American Veterinary Medical Association(AVMA). I mean, the group's own mission states that the organization exists in part to "improve animal and human health," yet AVMA opposes limiting antibiotic use in livestock. Talk about a classic case of saying one thing and doing another. Antibiotics are abused on factory farms, with farmers using them to  promote animal growth and to keep livestock from getting sick while living in abhorrent conditions.  The AVMA should be concerned with changing these conditions, not joining with the ranks of Big Pharma to pump animals full of unnecessary drugs.

Tell AMVA that it's time for it to start doing its stated job — no group connected with animal welfare should be complicit with factory farms. Sign our petition, and demand that the American Veterinary Medical Association live up to its standards and stop supporting the over-drugging of livestock.

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Photo credit: Socially Responsible Agricultural Project via Flickr