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Every day, antibiotics are used to treat thousands of sick children and adults. Humans depend on these life-saving medicines for their personal health. Recently, however, scientists have found some types of illness-causing bacteria are growing resistant to antibiotics and are becoming harder and harder to treat.
On large industrial farms in the United States, where the majority of our food animals are produced, antibiotics are routinely mixed with livestock feed, not to cure illness but to promote faster growth. Unfortunately, this practice promotes the development of new and deadly strains of drug-resistant bacteria. In addition, the crowded and often unhygienic conditions of many industrial farms facilitate transfer of bacteria and infection, increasing the need for antibiotic use in the hopes of preventing diseases that might arise from these conditions.
The Pew Campaign on Human Health and Industrial Farming is joining the American Medical Association, the World Health Organization, the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations, and countless others in working to protect human health by eliminating the overuse of antibiotics in food animals.
For more information, visit the Pew Campaign on Human Health and Industrial Farming Web site.
Apr 29, 2008 - The current industrial farm animal production system often poses unacceptable risks to public health, the environment and the welfare of the animals themselves, according to an extensive two and a half year examination conducted by the Pew Commission on Industrial Farm Animal Production.
Read: Summary View: Full Report (Adobe PDF)
Jan 30, 2008 - The problem of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is growing in the United States and worldwide. This report explores the scope of the AMR problem and what can or should be done about AMR from the standpoint of animal agriculture.
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