Warning: eating may be hazardous to your health

According to a newly published report, crops have been found to be a source of human ingestion of antibiotics given to livestock, even if the crops come from organic farms.I'll skip over how the antibiotics get from the livestock into the soil; it should be obvious. But the implications for public health are huge.

Health officials fear that eating vegetables and meat laced with drugs meant to treat infections can promote resistant strains of bacteria in food and the environment.

Roach said “the clearest public health implication” from treating livestock with antibiotics is the development of resistant bacteria that reduces the effectiveness of human medicine. Past studies have shown overuse of antibiotics reduces their ability to cure infections. Over time, certain antibiotics are rendered ineffective.

Scientists believe antibiotics also may have contributed to the explosive rise in asthma and allergies in children over the last 20 years. Researchers at Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit, following 448 children from birth for seven years, reported that children who received antibiotics within their first six months had a higher risk of developing allergies and asthma.

Such health concerns led the European Union in 2006 to ban antibiotic use as feed additives for promoting livestock growth. But in the United States, nearly 25 million pounds of antibiotics per year, up from 16 million in the mid 1980s, are given to healthy animals for agriculture purposes, according to a 2000 report by the Union of Concerned Scientists.

It's clear that in the United States, we have to change our ways when it comes to food. As it stands right now, the very thing we need to sustain life is causing health problems that will limit that life. That's not a sustainable equation.