LYCOS RETRIEVER 
Antibiotics: Livestock
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Further research is needed to investigate the presence of antibiotics in edible parts of plants, especially vegetables that are consumed raw, and how different plants absorb different antibiotic compounds. Research is ongoing at the University of Minnesota to further investigate the potential fate and transport of antibiotics introduced to the environment from livestock operations.
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A more recent study by the Universty of California-Berkeley cited the use of antibiotics in livestock as a possible cause for the emergence of drug resistant strains of E.coli that cause female urinary tract infections. Twenty-two percent of the strains collected at the Berkely site were resistant to a common antibiotic used to treat bladder infections.
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CSPI staff scientist Patricia Lieberman, Ph.D., added, “The U.S. is one of the only developed nations that still allows the ‘subtherapeutic' use of important human-use antibiotics to promote the growth of livestock. For the sake of the public's health, it's high time that the FDA kicked livestock off the drug habit.”
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Farmers can help as well by avoiding the use of antibiotics in their livestock that are similar to those used in humans. Antibiotics are widely used in healthy livestock to improve their growth rate (by an unknown mechanism).
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The heavy use of antibiotics in industrialized livestock operations can select for resistant bacteria, such as MRSA. A study in Europe documented that pig farms routinely using antibiotics were more likely to have MRSA than farms with limited antibiotics use.
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