Even if our government is ignoring the most pressing health risks posed by industrial agriculture, it's nice to see that other nations are being proactive...
South Korea recently passed a complete ban on the mixing of antibiotics with animal feed (1). Feeding animals with low levels of antibiotics has become widespread practice throughout the agriculture industry because of the unhealthy conditions that most livestock are raised in. In order to stave off the disease and infection that would otherwise result from grossly overcrowded living conditions, many farmers maintain a steady supply of antibiotics in their animal feed. Rather than make our food safer, however, this practice creates an even greater danger: the cultivation of antibiotic-resistant pathogens.
The CDC has linked this practice of feeding animals on sub-therapeutic levels of antibiotics to the rise of antibiotic-resistant pathogens. Furthermore, it has found that these pathogens affect humans as well as animals (2).
To understand just how frighteningly prevalent this practice is, consider that eighty percent of antibiotics used in the U.S. go to animals rather than humans, and that North Carolina alone uses more antibiotics on animals than the entire country does on humans (3).
Of course, the bad news for South Koreans is that despite their good sense, this ban on antibiotics in animal feed won't do much to prevent the development of antibiotic-resistant pathogens world-wide. As long as the United States continues this practice, not only our country, but the whole world is endangered. It is time that we recognized the part we play in advancing this common peril to humanity.
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1) http://www.allaboutfeed.net/news/south-korea-to-ban-antibiotics-in-animal-feed-11846.html
2) http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/eid/vol10no6/04-0403.htm
3) http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/12/opinion/12kristof.html?src=me&ref=general
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