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Farm Workers Carry Drug-Resistant Staph Despite Partial FDA Antibiotics Ban

Posted by Soulskill on from the that's-awfully-mean-of-them dept.

An anonymous reader writes "New research out of the University of North Carolina now shows factory farm workers actually carry drug-resistant staph. Europe has long ago banned the use of antibiotics in livestock, but the FDA remains behind the curve with a partial ban. Thanks to large industrial farming operations, we all remain continuously at risk as our last line of antibiotics is wasted on animals."

2 of 120 comments (clear)

  1. Antibiotics not banned in Europe by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Contrary to what it say above, antibiotics are not completely banned in Europe for preemptive use in farm animal production. However, there is a list of approved antibiotics for such uses, and relevance of the antibiotics for human medicine is a factor in the rules.

    Here is a link to the Danish treatment guidelines: http://www.foedevarestyrelsen.dk/english/SiteCollectionDocuments/25_PDF_word_filer%20til%20download/05kontor/Behandlingsvejledning_2011_engelsk.xls (warning: Excel). In column J there is a ranking of relevance to human medicine.

  2. Corn by ThatsNotPudding · · Score: 4, Informative

    Cattle will have impressive weight gains when you feed them (heavily subsidized) corn. Until it starts to kill them, as their digestive system didn't evolve (there's that word again) to process an industrialized grain. But you can stave off that death for a while with heavy doses of antibiotics. Just long enough to get them to the slaughterhouse.

    Bon Appetit.