I’ve been wary of the FDA for quite sometime, ever since they bypassed their deadline for determining what exactly is and isn’t gluten-free. This new nugget of information, however, really makes me wary of them. According toMother Jones, the FDA has decided to give up on regulating antibiotic abuse on factory farms–at least for the time being, they claim.
How does this affect you? If you’re a meat eater, this means that non-government related farms (agribusiness) can plump their cows full of antibiotics, which in turn generate antibiotic resistant pathogens in you, and thus, endanger your life. Isn’t that just a lovely holiday gift? It just goes to show that big business really doesn’t care about the people, they only care about their product. Eighty percent of antibiotics aren’t consumed by humans, they’re consumed by animals. Worst of all, they’ve thrown in the towel after fighting this fight since the Carter administration over thirty years ago. Why stop now? Have the big bad agribusiness men really scared you, FDA? With all these facts and figures, why would you say, “okay, you can pump the animals full of drugs, even though we know that this hurts people. We’re tired. We’re so over this.” It’s BS, and I’m really angry. Of course they have a fake apology, claiming that the action “should not be interpreted as a sign that the FDA no longer has safety concerns or that the FDA will not consider re-proposing withdrawal proceedings in the future, if necessary.”
Really, FDA? You had three years to regulate what really is and isn’t gluten-free, and nothing has been accomplished. You allow countless diet pills come into the market that severely harm and kill people. Many birth control manufacturers are facing a lot of heat for their ingredients that you allowed. You allow HFCS to still be on the market, and even allowed agribusiness to produce those BS “your body can’t tell if it’s corn sugar or cane sugar!” commericals AND be put into “natural products” (yep, HFCS shows up in Vicks NatureFusion cold medicines, even though they go on about how wonderful it is that there’s no dyes and gluten and such, they still have something that was invented in a laboratory in 1957 in their “natural” medicine.) Why should we trust them?
What do you think, LivLunatics? Do you think the FDA will pick up on the anger of the population, or will it be business as usual? Does this make you not want to eat meat anymore?
Update 01/05/12: There’s been a little bit of success! According to Mother Jones, the FDA has banned certain uses of the cephlasporin family of antibiotics. The agency has released a statement in regard to this decision: “Cephalosporins are commonly used in humans to treat pneumonia as well as to treat skin and soft tissue infections. In addition, they are used in the treatment of pelvic inflammatory disease, diabetic foot infections, and urinary tract infections. If cephalosporins are not effective in treating these diseases, doctors may have to use drugs that are not as effective or that have greater side effects.” This is a minor step, but still a step nonetheless. Let’s hope the FDA gets more aggressive with the banning of antibiotics in animal farms!
Kathleen H. Furey 