Antibiotic-Resistant Bacteria

Factory farms are also breeding grounds for antibiotic-resistant bacteria, which are known as “supergerms.” On farms across America, the antibiotics that we depend on to treat human illnesses are now used to promote growth in animals and to keep them alive in horrific living conditions that would otherwise kill them. Not surprisingly, countless new strains of antibiotic-resistant bacteria have developed as a result of this abusive practice—the American Medical Association and other health groups warned that this would happen.

Roughly 70 percent of the antibiotics used in the United States each year are given to animals who are used for food.³⁶ What does this mean for you? It means that when you get sick, the antibiotics your doctor prescribes may no longer work.³⁷

These new strains of antibiotic-resistant bacteria have quickly made their way off the farm and into grocery store meat coolers. In one U.S. Department of Agriculture study, researchers found that 67 percent of chicken samples and 66 percent of beef samples were contaminated with “superbugs” that could not be killed with antibiotics.³⁶ A recent report by the U.S. General Accounting Office ominously warns, “Antibiotic-resistant bacteria have been transferred from animals to humans, and many of the studies we reviewed found that this transference poses significant risks for human health.”³⁹

At least two major antibiotics are quickly becoming worthless to humans because factory farmers have been feeding these powerful medicines to animals. Vancomycin, a drug that is known as a “last defense” in fighting the deadly blood infections and pneumonia caused by staphylococcus bacteria, is becoming obsolete because resistant strains have developed in farmed animals who are given the medicine as a growth stimulant. Similarly, the antibiotic used to treat campylobacter infections in humans is becoming worthless—even as these infection rates rise. This is just another example of what happens when antibiotics are given to animals who are farmed for food.⁴⁰

Find out what the government is doing to protect public health.