From a recent news story:

PEOPLE who eat chicken, minced beef, pork chops and lettuce may develop an immunity to the drugs used to treat potentially fatal conditions such as meningitis and pneumonia.

Seven years after a landmark report by the Joint Expert Technical Advisory Committee on Antibiotic Resistance warned of drug immunity being passed through the food chain from animals to humans, an investigation is to be launched to measure the risk to consumers.

Scientists have long warned that the overuse of antibiotics, such as growth promoters in chicken, cattle and pigs, can breed drug-resistant bugs that may impede antibiotic treatments of diseases in humans.

The inquiry, due to be completed next May, will estimate the amount of antibiotic-resistant bacteria existing in food. Chicken, minced beef, pork-shoulder chops and iceberg lettuce heads will be the initial focus of the study, after overseas research identified them as containing common antibiotic-resistant bacteria.

Canberra Hospital Infectious Diseases Unit director Peter Collignon welcomed the research, saying people had the right to know what they were eating.

“This is an issue and we need this data,” Professor Collignon said. “It is beyond doubt that whenever you use antibiotics, you get resistance. But the animal industry seems to be denying this is happening.

“In Australia we use 250,000kg of antibiotics in people every year. In animals we use 500,000kg…

(source: news.com.au)

Guys - this is why we don’t use iceberg lettuce at Atma Yoga.

With profit-driven farming, farmers are forced to maximize their profit in order to stay competitive. If they don’t use growth hormones to boost the production of meat they will be driven out of business. Using growth hormones accelerates the metabolism of the animal. The stress of accelerated metabolism combined with the conditions of factory farms make animals more susceptible to disease. In order to counteract this animals are routinely given massive amounts of antibiotics.

People then eat the bodies of these animals and in this way ingest large amounts of antibiotics and potentially antibiotic resistant bacteria.

This is what happens when you have meat eating and a profit driven economy.

The solution to this is a simple principle at a fundamental level - stop eating meat.

Swallowing a spider to catch the fly, and a bird to catch the spider, and then a cat to catch the bird, is not the right way to address these complex issues. Don’t swallow the fly in the first place!