The recent media reports surrounding antibiotic-resistant disease all suggested a common-sense recommendation: Healthy humans should not take antibiotics.
Yet healthy livestock animals are routinely fed low levels of antibiotics, in part because this makes them grow faster. But this common practice in industrialized livestock production also spurs the development of antibiotic-resistant diseases.
The release of the recent Pew Commission report highlights this use of antibiotics as a threat to the health of farmers, farm workers and the general public.
Sen. Tom Harkin, as chair of the Senate Agriculture Committee, is in a unique position to champion a bill that would phase out this misuse, the Preservation of Antibiotics for Medical Treatment Act. Such legislative action would reduce this public health threat without reducing treatment for sick farm animals.
- Robert Gronski, policy coordinator, National Catholic Rural Life Conference, Des MoinesDes Moines Register
