I'll Take My Chicken with a Side of Anti-biotics

Here's a good editorial in USAToday about the use of anti-biotics in the meat industry: http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/editorials/2010-07-12-editorial12_ST_N.htm?loc=interstitialskip

It's amazing the risks that the food industry takes with our health in the name of making more of the almighty dollar. What's even more amazing is that while you, as a human, has to get a prescription from a doctor to get an anti-biotic, and show good cause for needing it, factory farms can churn anti-biotics into animals that will be essentially slaughtered for food as a preventative measure---the animals aren't even sick and they're dosing them.

This practice has a particularly acute impact on me. As I explained before in previous posts, because of an overzealous dermatologist who prescribed anti-biotics for my teen-years' acne, I now have severe resistance to anti-biotics. Now, when I have any kind of a bacterial infection, the doctors must prescribe larger then normal dosages of anti-biotics, or newer exotic forms of anti-biotics, for them to work.

So the last thing I need is to fuel my resistance further by getting doses of anti-biotics in my food. I try to buy meat that hasn't been treated with anti-biotics, but it's not only possible.

I really wish that our government would step up to the plate and regulate this practice.