Recently the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) said they are going to urge farms to stop using antibiotics on a routine basis to improve animal growth and that antibiotics should only be used in cases where the health of the animal is at risk. They state that there is growing evidence that the over use of antibiotics is creating stains of bacteria that are resistant to standard antibiotics.
The Beef, Pork and Poultry Industries all released statements denying any evidence that links daily antibiotic intake with the rise of antibiotic resistant bacteria.
It is estimated that 70% of all antibiotics in the USA are sold to the livestock industry, so the pharmaceutical industry is also fighting the urging of the FDA. This was a just a suggestion from the FDA. There will be years of fighting before the USA bans antibiotics in feed as they have done in Europe.
There is a growing concern in the conventional feed industry that todays antibiotics are not effective against micro-toxins that are growing on conventionally grown GMO crops. It is my thought that these toxins are resistant to antibiotics because they grow on a grain that has an antibiotic resistant gene that has been infused into the genome as the identification marker for that grain.
