Just in off of Twitter, now there is anti-biotic resistant bacteria being found in pork. I know, I know, it is not a confirmed report, and yet, its probable, given everything we know. It was a new study done by Consumer Reports.
CAN WE JUST STATE FOR THE RECORD THAT OUR FOOD IS KILLING US! I know I need to calm down, but it's 11:45 p.m. and I should be in bed but when I see this sort of stuff, it really really really upsets me that our government - large agri-business - corporations - let's call it what it is PROFITEERS - get to make all the rules.
There is also a growth drug given to pigs. Oh, and that's not all - Here is some of the report from the site: http://www.motherjones.com/blue-marble/2012/11/fun-antibiotic-resistant-bugs-your-pork
The following is an excerpt from the article - go and read it all - you will be appalled. And, yes, they are to self-regulate I believe is the way it was put.
Consumer Reports also found traces of a veterinary drug, ractopamine, in 20 percent of its pork samples. Used to spur growth in pigs, ractopamine is fed to an estimated 60-80 percent of hogs raised in the US. Though it was present at levels deemed safe by the FDA, in many countries the jury's still out about whether ractopamine is safe at all. The European Union and China require imported meat to be ractopamine-free. And US companies like Chipotle and Whole Foods refuse to serve pork raised with the drug. When USDA meat inspectors reported an increase of adverse side effects from Paylean, the drug's brand name, the FDA requested that the drug's manufacturer Elanco add a warning label in 2002. As reporter Helena Bottemiller exposed earlier this year, the FDA received reports of adverse side effects in more than 160,000 pigs taking ractopamine, though the agency would not confirm that the bad reactions were a result of the drug.
Representative Louise Slaughter (NY) called the results of the Consumer Reports study "simply terrifying" and criticized the FDA and food industry's "half-measures and voluntary guidelines" as inadequate in protecting the public against the rise in antibiotic-resistant bacteria. A bill Slaughter re-introduced to Congress in 2011, the Preservation of Antibiotics for Medical Treatment Act (PAMTA), would ban using routine antibiotics on healthy animals in hopes of avoiding the proliferation of superbugs, but the bill seems to be stuck in committee for the time being.
So for now, as my colleague Tom Philpott reported back in April, the pork industry is pretty much free to regulate its own antibiotic use. So gross stories like that of antibiotic-resistant bugs carried via manure on the legs of cockroaches and flies into surrounding communities could be on the rise—meaning it's not just bacon-guzzlers who have to be worried about what's going into our pork.
Consumer Reports also found traces of a veterinary drug, ractopamine, in 20 percent of its pork samples. Used to spur growth in pigs, ractopamine is fed to an estimated 60-80 percent of hogs raised in the US. Though it was present at levels deemed safe by the FDA, in many countries the jury's still out about whether ractopamine is safe at all. The European Union and China require imported meat to be ractopamine-free. And US companies like Chipotle and Whole Foods refuse to serve pork raised with the drug. When USDA meat inspectors reported an increase of adverse side effects from Paylean, the drug's brand name, the FDA requested that the drug's manufacturer Elanco add a warning label in 2002. As reporter Helena Bottemiller exposed earlier this year, the FDA received reports of adverse side effects in more than 160,000 pigs taking ractopamine, though the agency would not confirm that the bad reactions were a result of the drug.
Representative Louise Slaughter (NY) called the results of the Consumer Reports study "simply terrifying" and criticized the FDA and food industry's "half-measures and voluntary guidelines" as inadequate in protecting the public against the rise in antibiotic-resistant bacteria. A bill Slaughter re-introduced to Congress in 2011, the Preservation of Antibiotics for Medical Treatment Act (PAMTA), would ban using routine antibiotics on healthy animals in hopes of avoiding the proliferation of superbugs, but the bill seems to be stuck in committee for the time being.
So for now, as my colleague Tom Philpott reported back in April, the pork industry is pretty much free to regulate its own antibiotic use. So gross stories like that of antibiotic-resistant bugs carried via manure on the legs of cockroaches and flies into surrounding communities could be on the rise—meaning it's not just bacon-guzzlers who have to be worried about what's going into our pork.
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