Is Your Steak Protected from the Sniffles?

Perhaps my only happy memory of getting sick as a child was taking the yummy bubblegum flavored amoxicillan. I was always happy when it was prescribed and loved the bright pink color and cool feel of the refrigreriated liquid suspension as it passed through my inflamed throat. I'm not five any more, and now when I am sick, I try to do anything to avoid taking an antibiotic. I , for one, am more scared of drug resistant super bug ( think the antihero to superman!) then a little common bacterial infection. And, fortunately, both doctors and patients are coming on board with moderating the use of antibiotics. Sadly, this is not the case across American's factory farms, CAFO's ( confined animal feeding operations), where these industrial farmers push antibiotics into animals nonstop. Not only are these antibiotics bad for the animals, bad for the humans who eat the animals, they are bad in a public health sense. The more our diseases get play around with our antibiotics, the stronger and smarter they get in defeating them.
Thanks to the diligent and passionate work of the Union of Concerned Scientists, yesteraday the New York Times's editorial page published a strongly worded opinion calling for the passage of H.R. 1549/S. 619, the Preservation of Antibiotics for Medical Treatment Act, which according to the Times " would allow veterinarians to prescribe antibiotics to treat individual animals or prevent disease, but it would sharply restrict the routine feeding of antibiotics to farm animals — the practice most closely associated with the development of drug-resistant pathogens."
There is hope that the bill, sponsored by Senator Kennedy and Rep. Louise Slaughter, will have a fighting chance to become law. The editorial noted that , "Despite that danger, the Food and Drug Administration had been reluctant to restrict routine agricultural use of antibiotics. The F.D.A.’s principal deputy commissioner, Dr. Joshua Sharfstein, signaled a welcome change in direction recently, testifying on behalf of a new bill, the Preservation of Antibiotics for Medical Treatment Act. "
You can help this bill become a law. Please take a moment to send a letter to your Congressional offices. You can click here to send the letter through the Union of Concerned Scientists.