Factory farming’s role in antibiotics key

Re Changing the way we look at antibiotics, Life

Oct. 24 Professor Justin Nodwell and his faculty at the University of Toronto are to be commended on the fine work they are doing in the field of antibiotic resistance. The research and developments he describes are heartening as much as they are intrinsically interesting.

Any battle against antibiotic resistance would be severely hampered, however, by neglecting to address the use of antibiotics in farm animals. Factory farming, from which the majority of our meat originates, uses about 70 per cent of the antibiotics produced today not only to treat illness in animals but to promote growth and mitigate against the often unsanitary conditions in these huge industrial “confined animal feeding operations.”

Not only are we contaminating the environment with antibiotics through the waste of these facilities but drug resistant strains can develop in the animals as well. The solution to this part of the problem does not lie in more and better antibiotics but in a paradigm shift in the way we think about and source our food. Mary Jane Monteith, Whitby