Antibiotic usage and animals link from:-
http://www.sustainabletable.org/issues/antibiotics/Antibiotics and the Animal IndustryIndustrial farms have been mixing antibiotics into livestock feed since 1946, when studies showed that the drugs cause animals to grow faster and put on weight more efficiently, increasing meat producers' profits.6 Today antibiotics are routinely fed to livestock, poultry, and fish on industrial farms to promote faster growth and to compensate for the unsanitary conditions in which they are raised.7
Modern industrial farms are ideal breeding grounds for germs and disease. Animals live in close confinement, often standing or laying in their own filth, and under constant stress that inhibits their immune systems and makes them more prone to infection. According to the Union of Concerned Scientists, as much as 70 percent of all antibiotics used in the United States is fed to healthy farm animals.
When drug-resistant bacteria develop at industrial livestock facilities, they can reach the human population through food, the environment (i.e., water, soil, and air),8 or by direct contact with animals (i.e., farmers and farm workers).
Industrial livestock operations produce an enormous amount of concentrated animal waste—over one billion tons annually—that is often laden with antibiotics, as well as antibiotic-resistant bacteria from the animals' intestines. It is estimated that as much as 80 to 90 percent of all antibiotics given to animals are not fully digested and eventually pass through the body and enter the environment,9 where they can encounter new bacteria and create additional resistant strains.10 With huge quantities of manure routinely sprayed onto fields surrounding CAFOs, antibiotic resistant bacteria can leech into surface and ground water, contaminating drinking wells and endangering the health of people living close to large livestock facilities.
Antibiotic Resistance, Public Health and Public PolicyAntibiotic-resistant bacteria is a growing public health crisis because infections from resistant bacteria are increasingly difficult and expensive to treat. As of this writing, the U.S. Congress was considering legislation, staunchly opposed by industrial farm lobbyists, which would ban seven classes of antibiotics from use on factory farms and would restrict the use of other antibiotics. This is a response to the fact that modern industrial livestock operations threaten to increase the prevalence of antibiotic-resistant bacteria.
It has been estimated that at least 18,000 Americans die every year from drug-resistant infections.11 In addition, the National Academy of Sciences calculates that increased health care costs associated with antibiotic-resistant bacteria exceed $4 billion each year in the United States alone12—a figure that reflects the price of pharmaceuticals and longer hospital stays, but does not account for lost workdays, lost productivity or human suffering.13
