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Animal Farms Are Pumping Up Superbugs

oxide7 writes "The philosopher Frederick Nietzsche once famously said, 'That which does not kill me, makes me stronger.' That may or may not be true for human beings, but it is certainly true for bacteria. The superbugs are among us and they are not leaving. Indeed, they are growing stronger. 'The problem is that the animal agriculture industry makes massive use of low-dose antibiotics for growth promotion and in place of effective infection prevention methods,' Young said, adding that the farm animal population is much larger than the human population. The low-dose antibiotics do not kill the disease. They make the disease stronger, more resistant to those and other antibiotics. The animals — the cattle, pigs and chickens — thus treated become superbug factories. The diseases stay in them and they wash off them to infect the surrounding environment."

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  1. Re:It is all your fault (fyi this is a joke) by T+Murphy · · Score: 4, Funny

    You vegetarians want to save the animals, but we carnivores are doing our part to cut down on this superbug problem. If we listened to you vegetarians, these animal farms would be a huge drain on the economy, raising animals for no practical use, and the animal population would spiral out of control. Stop shifting the blame and take responsibility to this disaster you're creating.