Photograph by James P Jackson/Getty; Illustration by Bloomberg
View Cows, Pigs, Chickens Have Drug Problem Congress Can Fix
Much of the beef, pork or chicken we eat contains small amounts
of antibiotics. The drugs are fed to animals so they can thrive
in the crowded, often-fetid factory farms that dominate U.S.
meat and poultry production. But giving animals a steady diet of
these medicines has contributed to the increase of antibiotic-
resistant bugs that can pose grave risks to humans. This isn’t
news to the Food and Drug Administration, which has known since
the early 1970s about the misuse of antibiotics in agriculture
and done little about it. The agency seemed to be headed in the
right direction in 1977, when it proposed a ban on using
penicillin and two forms of tetracycline for animal weight gain
after finding that the drugs “had not been proven to be safe.”
Under pressure from Congress and drugmakers, the agency was
ordered to hold hearings. It never did. The guidelines will ask
farmers to phase out t