Tuesday, June 22, 2010

Tell the FDA to Save Antibiotics

Tell the FDA: Protect Human and Animal Health by Saving Antibiotics

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is considering a rule that could weaken already-lenient controls on the use of antibiotics in food animal production.

The new rule affects the Veterinary Feed Directive (VFD), a program allowing veterinarians to prescribe antibiotics mixed into animal feed in new ways. Currently, the VFD ensures that for those new antibiotic uses a diagnosis is made before animals are given antibiotics in their feed.

Many industrial farms routinely feed antibiotics to poultry or livestock to compensate for overcrowded and unsanitary conditions, while promoting growth. Proposed changes to the VFD could weaken oversight that prevents unnecessary drug use - increasing the rate of antibiotic resistance in humans.

Up to 70 percent of all antibiotics sold in the U.S. are fed to healthy food animals. Weakening the VFD could breed dangerous new strains of antibiotic-resistant bacteria that can spread to humans thus making these important drugs we depend on useless.

Send your comment now. Tell the FDA to protect human and animal health by rejecting this rule and saving antibiotics.

11 comments:

mahakal said...

They should treat farm animals with homeopathic medicine and not use antibiotics.

ellroon said...

God, yes. We're going to kill ourselves with a super resistant virus that we've created ourselves....

Steve Bates said...

... And nothing will save us. I've no intrinsic opposition to antibiotics, but the quantities and strengths in which they're being used, together with the folly of mixing them into animal feed, is certain to leave us eventually with no effective protection against bacteria we can fight right now. There's nothing so good that humankind can't manage to throw it away...

ellroon said...

WheeeeeeEEEEe!

mahakal said...

Guess there's not much to do about it but toke up.

ellroon said...

:D!

It's a food enhancer, a oil product AND an antibacterial agent!!

mahakal said...

It is the tree of life. It provides the exact amino acid profile humans require for nutrition, along with the correct balance of essential fatty acids.

ellroon said...

Omg... the tree of life. It must have been in the Garden of Eden...

mahakal said...

Sure was, probably in what is now (or what is left of it is called) Sri Lanka. True (Ceylon) cinnamon comes from there, you can hardly find it in this country, where cassia from China is mislabeled as cinnamon. Cannabis grows natively in the Himalayas and followed the river valleys down to the Indian ocean, and then was transported over trade routes eventually to be seriously cultivated in other places, such as Cana'an (land of Cana). The importance of Cana was emphasized as the place name given to the wedding where Y'ShVA turned water into new wine. As Kanehbosm, it was a primary ingredient of the holy anointing oil which also constitutes the Christening. Kinmanbosm (true Cinnamon) was another ingredient, proving the trade routes, along with Cassia itself, and Myrrh, and Olive oil. And YHVH said, I am a Kanna god, and you shall have no other gods before me.

mahakal said...

When Adam and Eve ate from the tree of duality/alienation they were forbidden to eat from the tree of life lest they become immortal destructive power as knowing their divinity. An archangel was set to guard the tree until the end times of this generation, which is now.

It's time to end cannabis prohibition, for the survival of our species. We can do so in November, here in California. The Control and Tax Cannabis Initiative may not be the perfect language but making small amounts of cannabis similar to alcohol is harm reduction, because it will give adults over 21 a much safer choice of recreation (and that certainly includes the safety as well of the public when you consider the consequences of drunk driving).

ellroon said...

I'd like to put the Mexican drug cartels out of business too. Let's see if Californian voters can be intelligent for once....