Click here to read The Environmental Science and Technology Abstract

Did you know that 70% of antibiotics produced in the US are given to animals? The factory farms they are crammed into (concentration camps for animals) are so unhealthy that operators give the cows and chickens doses of antibiotics to prevent or cure plagues caused by overcrowding.

One result: microbes have evolved to survive the antibiotics. That’s evolution for you!

Second result: medicines that once cured human diseases are no longer working, and people are dying.

Even the soil is now impregnated with antibiotic-resistant genes! A recent study found that present-day soil has 15 times as many tetracycline-resistant genes than did soil that had been preserved since 1940 – even though this occurred in the Netherlands, which has stricter (read saner) laws about unnecessary antibiotic use in agriculture than we do. Read the study abstract in the Environmental Science and Technology. So please support efforts by legislators and regulators to rein in the overuse of medicines! In effect, this means opposing confined animal feeding operations (CAFOs) which are horribly cruel.