Wicked Local: Hintermeister: An all-around antibiotics bill from Sen. Warren

Rising strands of super-resistant bacteria ? that is, bacteria capable of resisting even hardcore antibiotics ? do not discriminate between Democrats and Republicans. Our immune systems, it turns out, are pretty much the same.  

Given this fact of human biology, Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s Bill to Strengthen Oversight of Antibiotic Use in Animals should earn your support, no matter what of the aisle you stand on. The bill, introduced in late June, would restrict the reckless overuse of antibiotics on industrial farms, a practice known to breed super-resistant bacteria, nicknamed “superbugs.”

Currently, the U.S. Federal Drug Administration (FDA) upholds no limits on the duration of use for antibiotics in farm animals, meaning that industrial farms may administer antibiotics ? even those important for human health ? with impunity to their animals for as long as they like. Meat farmers in the U.S. give low doses of antibiotics over long periods of time to otherwise healthy animals in order to preempt diseases which arise from the crowded, unsanitary conditions of factory farms. This practice is widespread. In the U.S., 70 percent of antibiotics originally developed for human use are purchased by the meat industry.

Read the full Wicked Local story here.

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