Civil Eats is reporting on a study published yesterday called Prescription For Change [PDF]. The report documents the results of a new poll organized by Consumer Reports (CR) National Research Center which polled 500 primary care and internal medicine physicians. The poll is evidence that the US medical establishment is acutely aware of the dangers presented by our corporate industrialized food system.
When the Consumer Reports (CR) National Research Center polled 500 family practice and internal medicine physicians last month, 97 percent said they were concerned about the growing problem of antibiotic-resistant infections, or “superbugs,” and 93 percent drew a direct connection to livestock production, which accounts for 80 percent of antibiotics use here in the U.S.
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These doctors’ perspectives have been shaped by their direct experiences with patients for whom the antibiotics they prescribe have stopped working. According to the report, a whopping 85 percent of the doctors polled had seen “one or more of their patients had been diagnosed with a presumed or confirmed case of a multi-drug resistant bacterial infection in the past 12 months.” Even more importantly, more than one third of those doctors had seen a patient “either die or suffer significant complications as a result of the illness.”
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), at least two million are sickened by drug-resistant bacteria each year and 23,000 die.
I wrote about the symbolic FDA solution here:
FDA guidelines on reducing antibiotic misuse in livestock industry is a bunch of bologna. I stand by that piece. Voluntary guidelines do not work. The industry has to be regulated and those regulations have to be enforced to protect our public health. This will not happen with our politicians in the pocket of big agri-business.
Take action here to eliminate antibiotics from our meat supply.