An interesting article on antibiotic use in the USA for animals.

I am one of the first to complain about the meat prices here but I am glad that the Swiss have not gone in this direction.

"Altogether, the US meat industry uses 29 million pounds of antibiotics every year. To put that number in perspective, consider that we humans in the United States—in all of our prescription fill-ups and hospital stays combined—use just over 7 million pounds per year. Thus the vast bulk of antibiotics consumed in this country, some 80 percent, goes to factory animal farms.

For years, scientists have worried that the industry's reliance on antibiotics was contributing to the growing problem of antibiotic resistance. The European Union took action to curtail routine antibiotic use on farms in 2006 (taking Sweden's lead, which had banned the practice 20 years before).


But here in the United States, the regulatory approach has been completely laissez-faire—and the meat industry would like to keep it that way. The industry claims that even though antibiotic-resistant bacteria have been found both in confined animals and supermarket meat, there's simply no evidence that livestock strains are jumping to the human population."


Link: http://motherjones.com/tom-philpott/...-factory-farms

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Yes, but a female family member of mine has told me I'm going to die of mad cow disease anyway since I eat the wild game here.

and then there's this:

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2011/...20086749.shtml

Note that in this outbreak, the strain is resistant to antibiotics. Americans are too reliant on antibiotics and abuse the crap out of them.

My very first job was at Kentucky Fried Chicken. As part of my training I learned about salmonella dangers, thorough cooking requirements, and cross contamination. It befuddles me why there should ever be a salmonella outbreak, and if there is, why it should be the meat's or the factory's fault.

So that means European Meat - not swiss then .... doesn't explain why CH meat costs so much more that german meat raised in the same way ....

This is new news?

I always cringe a little when I see the lunch/dinner menu and the meat is from Switzerland. I think the 'extra space' the animals get for their own benefit, makes the meat more like something I expect from McDonalds.

Only in that the article gives some good stats about the level of what is going on and that there seem to be aspects of a "cover-up" of less than positive information by the US department of agriculture.

Why yes, but in general, we consume by far more meat than antibiotics. Therefore, the comparison doesn't relate directly.

And they are pumping the animals full on antibiotics even when they are NOT sick thereby building up antibiotic resistant strains of very nasty bugs. Something that is not really good over the long term I would think.

I'm not too familiar with negative long term effects, but vets have been doing some great work when it comes to diseases:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/28/he...r=2&ref=health

(although this was apparently success over a virus rather than bacterial sickness)

They seem to be coping pretty well with it IMO.