Tom Philpot Summary

In this brief, the reader will see the pros and cons in antibiotic livestock. They will see commonly misunderstandings about antibiotics and facts. Throughout the paper the reader will see what long term and short term problems and benefits in livestock. In this research paper it will be covering antibiotics resistance and also how antibiotics it has changed the face of medicine.

For this homework assignment, please watch the Frontline episodes “The Trouble with Antibiotics” and “Outbreak at NIH” that aired on October 14, 2014 and answer the following questions. Your answers must be given in complete sentences, typed, spell-checked and grammar-checked. Please spell-check and grammar-check your work. The episode is available at http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/trouble-with-antibiotics/.

A couple times a year local and national mass media put the spotlight on problems connected to antibiotic overuse. Some people consider those problems to be real and serious, and others think that the discussed topics are nothing more than new “fashionable” subjects to talk about, distracting people from “real” problems, such as climbing gas prices or war expenses. Meanwhile, antibiotic overuse continues as a common practice among US doctors and agribusinesses for the last 20 years. The practice of antibiotic overuse has put patient’s health at risk, contributed to antibiotic resistance and increased bacterial mutation to a new, stronger level; as well as it hitting the economy with new costly expenses in health care. It is time to stop

Presently, speculations have risen about the amount of antibiotics used in the livestock industry and the desire to consume antibiotic-free meats. What is not understood, however, is the USDA has been monitoring the amount of antimicrobial residue in meats for several years. If unsafe levels are detected the meat is not allowed to be sold for human consumption. Yet, fast food chains such as Subway and Chipotle are claiming to go completely antibiotic free within the next decade. The practicality of this becoming a reality is slim due to the need to control, treat, and prevent diseases. To truly understand the importance of the antibiotic usage in cattle it must first be understood what antibiotics are and the reasons they are used. Additionally, the use of vaccinations should be taken into account for the

Do you want the animals you eat feed antibiotics and the food is not fresh or do you want food that is fresh and the animals are feed right?Ranchers and farmers have been feeding antibiotics to the animals we eat. Ever since they discovered decades ago and has been found as a health risk to humans but there is a food chain that can help America. The local sustainable food chain is the best food source to feed America.

By weight, eighty percent of antibiotics are used in agriculture to “fatten animals” and “protect them from the conditions in which they are raised” (McKenna). Animals are given micro-doses of antibiotics, that is, a small amount of antibiotics to prevent diseases from occurring. This micro-dosage amount allows for mutation that Fleming described. The routine use of antibiotics in agriculture has led to “[sixty-five] percent of chicken breasts” and “[forty-four] percent of ground beef” to house bacteria “resistant to tetracycline”. Additionally, “[eleven] percent of pork chops carried bacteria resistant to five classes of drugs” (McKenna). These bacteria then spread from animals to the humans who eat them, causing humans to get infections which cannot be treated. The issue isn’t as simple as ceasing to give antibiotics to animals. Most animals raised for consumption live in an environment ripe for infections and diseases to spread. Instead of giving the animals more room to live, the majority of farmers opt to give the animals antibiotics. For cattle, This prevents diseases and death to the immature weaned calves and cattle which saves the rancher both time and money—passing on the savings to the consumers. In a free market society higher prices tend to not go well. However, if antibiotics became useless farmers would have to “[enlarge] barns, [cut] down on crowding, and [delay] weaning”, which ultimately would increase the costs of raising livestock

She uses the Animal Health institute (AHI), and Gay Miller, whom is a veterinarian from the University of Illinois, to further her use of credible sources. Veldman begins to elaborate on the use of antibiotics in livestock, by quoting the AHI, stating, “antibiotics are an important tool for cattle producers to ensure the health of their animals” (Veldman). Veldman continues to harp on the AHI by stating, “[Antibiotics] have three basic purposes for use in livestock — disease treatment, disease prevention and performance enhancement” (Veldman). This statement gives the reader purpose and caters more to the overall audience, regardless of level of understanding, or level of education; the reader can more easily comprehend why antibiotics are used in livestock in the first

The word “antibiotic” in the livestock industry endures an extremely toasty topic. This word appears on Facebook posts, Twitter feeds, and in television news. Antibiotics receive an unfair assessment, when in reality, the word is just one large miscommunication between agriculturists like myself, and the public consumers. October 20th, 2015 was a

The main threat for the overuse of antibiotics are the creation of antibiotic resistant microbes, or more commonly called superbugs. Antibiotics are used to kill mass amounts of bacteria, but they cannot kill all of them. Some bacteria still survive, so they will reproduce and pass their genes down to their offspring. The offspring will now have their parents genes, which includes being resistant to a certain type of antibiotic. Tom Philpott, an award winning writer about food politics, explained, “And the worst part is that antibiotics use in factory farms is not mostly matter of keeping animals healthy.” Philpott is saying farmers mostly use antibiotics to promote faster growth and not to treat sickness. American Cyanamid, a pharmaceutical company, tested animals with vitamin B12 to see if they grew faster. The animals saw significant weight gain, and more experiments were tested. What American Cyanamid found was the antibiotic in vitamin B12 was actually causing the weight gain. This discovery led to mass amounts of antibiotics being used in animals. In 1950, before the discovery, there were 1.6 million chicken farms raising a total of about 560 million chickens. 28 years later, 3 billion chickens were being hatched in about 31,000 large farms (Philpott). The discovery led to mass expansion of farms, because animals were able to grow faster and bigger, so farms took advantage. Factory farms have been overusing

“Eating Animals is Making us Sick” is written by Jonathan Safran Foer. In this article, the author makes a connection between a number of antibiotics given to animals, and the sicknesses that plague the human population. The author wants the audience to recognize that the common practice of factory farming is loosely regulated. Because of this loose regulation, farmers are allowed to immunize their animals and treat their animals to unhealthy extremes. This treatment leads to antimicrobial-resistant pathogens. The author, Jonathan Safran Foer, successfully uses pathos, ethos, and logos to argue that the treatment and the enormous amount of drugs being pumped into livestock have major effects on the audience's health.

Antibiotic use in animals has recently captured the attention of various professionals as the blatant, adverse effects have become increasingly prevalent. Agricultural manufacturers carelessly inject livestock with antibiotics in order to maximize their weight gain by minimizing the amount of energy consumed in fighting illnesses. This broad use of antibiotics in food-producing animals has contributed to the emergence and distribution of antibiotic-resistant bacteria, resulting in either mild or fatal illnesses. To put the severity of this issue in perspective, legislators must realize that 1 in 5 antibiotic-resistant infections are caused by bacteria from food and animals. Although antibiotic use in animals is not the sole culprit of the

The group most affected by antimicrobial resistance directly related to the agriculture industry are children under the age of ten. When pathogens become multidrug resistant the risk of detrimental outcomes including fatality increases significantly (Shey, 2003). Studies were conducted in Denmark after the ban on nontherapeutic antibiotic use in farm animals in 1999. Research concludes that there was a reduction in drug resistant genes and the health of the animals did not significantly decline nor did the profits of the

Believe it or not, there was a time when the food industry was 100% natural and free of man-made inventions. But, as population grew, so did the efforts to try and produce more food for a cheaper price. Caring for livestock during the 1900’s was not an easy task because, as everyone might know by now, animals are fragile and susceptible to many diseases which led to costly deaths that companies were not fond of. It wasn’t until the 1950’s that a group of scientists from the US, discovered that adding antibiotics in animal feed increased the growth rate of the livestock. By 2001, The Union of Concerned Scientists reported that nearly 90% of the antibiotics used in livestock were being used for non-therapeutic purposes, in other words, it was

Farm animals receive 30 times more antibiotics (mostly penicillins and tetracyclines) than people do. The drugs treat and prevent infections. But the main reason farmers like them is that they also make cows, hogs and chickens grow faster from each pound of feed. Resistant strains emerge just as they do in humans taking antibiotics--and remain in the animal's flesh even after it winds up in the meat case. (par. 8)

You touched on many of the dilemmas that we faces with antibiotic over-use, but not doing anything is not an option, although we may feel it is, since the over-use of antibiotic has been an ongoing battle. I get it that the farmers may have to do some things that are not morally correct to ensure their livelihood, but their actions along with the veterinarian and the pharmacist is affecting more than a handful of people. This is a local, international and global problem. The farmers may be able to make contributions toward decreasing the use of antibiotics by not having animals living in crowded unsanitary quarters. This will help cut down on diseases and the need for antibiotics to treat such a large scale of animals. We know from