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When Food Kills - 6/13/2011 4:41:09 AM   
Brain


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I don't understand why they are being so irresponsible. I just can't believe they think they are saving that much money that it is worth killing people. MRSA is a problem in Canadian hospitals as well.


When Food Kills
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF

The single state of North Carolina uses more antibiotics for livestock than the entire United States uses for humans.

This cavalier use of low-level antibiotics creates a perfect breeding ground for antibiotic-resistant pathogens. The upshot is that ailments can become pretty much untreatable.

One of the most common antibiotic-resistant pathogens is MRSA, which now kills more Americans annually than AIDS and adds hugely to America’s medical costs. MRSA has many variants, and one of the more benign forms now is widespread in hog barns and among people who deal with hogs. An article this year in a journal called Applied and Environmental Microbiology reported that MRSA was found in 70 percent of hogs on one farm.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/12/opinion/12kristof.html

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RE: When Food Kills - 6/13/2011 4:46:08 AM   
kalikshama


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Good article. Corporations typically pass these hidden costs to society. I'd rather (and do) pay more upfront for meat that was raised without these shortcuts.

quote:

Every year in the United States, 325,000 people are hospitalized because of food-borne illnesses and 5,000 die, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That’s right: food kills one person every two hours.

Yet while the terrorist attacks of 2001 led us to transform the way we approach national security, the deaths of almost twice as many people annually have still not generated basic food-safety initiatives. We have an industrial farming system that is a marvel for producing cheap food, but its lobbyists block initiatives to make food safer.

Perhaps the most disgraceful aspect of our agricultural system — I say this as an Oregon farmboy who once raised sheep, cattle and hogs — is the way antibiotics are recklessly stuffed into healthy animals to make them grow faster.


The chicken, beef, and pig sold at Whole Foods was not given antibiotics: http://www.wholefoodsmarket.com/pdfs/5-StepAnimalWelfareRating.pdf




< Message edited by kalikshama -- 6/13/2011 4:52:03 AM >

(in reply to Brain)
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RE: When Food Kills - 6/13/2011 5:32:06 AM   
flcouple2009


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quote:

ORIGINAL: Brain
The single state of North Carolina uses more antibiotics for livestock than the entire United States uses for humans.


And do they have some documentation for that?  That statement in the opinion piece only links to another opinion piece.


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RE: When Food Kills - 6/13/2011 5:39:01 AM   
DarkSteven


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The MRSA claim is based on a three year old article in a Canadian publication about US diseases (?), which in turn references a six year old article for AIDS fatalities.

Why use such weird citations?


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