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CVA Weekly Newsletter
December 19, 2013
- Please Support the CVA
- This Week’s Sermon from Rev. Frank and Mary Hoffman
- News and Comment - FDA to Phase Out Non-Medical Antibiotic Use by Farms
1. Please Support the CVA
We rely on donations to continue our important ministry. Among our activities, every year we distribute over 100,000 booklets at Christian concerts, revivals, and other events. CVA Sustainers ($25 donation or more) receive our daily Take Heart! e-note, and a subscription to the outstanding magazine Veg News. To donate, go to the bottom of this page. As always, we encourage you to visit our web site, where you will find essays, commentaries, ways to participate in our ministry.
2. This Week’s Sermon from Rev. Frank and Mary Hoffman
His Second Coming Will Heal the Earth
3. News and Comment - FDA to Phase Out Non-Medical Antibiotic Use by Farms
FDA to Phase Out Non-Medical Antibiotic Use by Farms
(Los Angeles Times) -- "[T]he Food and Drug Administration [FDA] is phasing out the non-medical use of antibiotics on farm animal . . . push[ing] livestock and poultry producers to limit their use of antibiotics to treating sick animals, and to stop using the drugs to promote faster growth . . . Farms consume about 80% of the nation's antibiotics supply. Such frequent use has come at a price: Antibiotic-resistant superbugs are on the rise. More than 2 million people in the U.S. now contract drug-resistant infections annually, resulting in 23,000 deaths."
Comment
Factory farms include low-doses antibiotics in the feed for two main reasons. The antibiotics help prevent infection among nonhuman beings forced to live in highly concentrated, very stressful environments that suppress their immune systems. If living conditions were not so horrific, this major incentive for agribusiness to use antibiotics would not exist. The other reason is that antibiotics kill gut flora that consume part of the nutritional value of food. By reducing gut flora with antibiotics, the conversion of feed into flesh is more efficient. For this modest increase in efficiency, we are making human populations much more vulnerable to infections. I’ve asked many infectious disease specialists the question: Are we losing the war against the bugs? And the answer is always the same – yes. Bacteria are developing resistance far faster than we are developing novel ways to fighting them. We might soon see the day when infectious diseases once again kill a large fraction of the population early in life. Further, since the problem of resistance is greatest in hospitals, it might soon be too risky to get medical care in hospitals for everything but the most immediately life-threatening conditions.
Stephen R. Kaufman, M.D.
Your question and comments are welcome
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