Have you heard of PAMTA yet? Chances are you will, because it’s an issue that’s likely to become red-hot this the summer. Rep. Louise Slaughter (D-NY), the only microbiologist in U.S. Congress, has introduced the Preservation of Antibiotics for Medical Treatment Act (PAMTA), which would regulate the use of antibiotics in agriculture.
The problem is this: Antibiotics are overused by both the medical profession and agriculture, which has led to a growing antibiotic-resistance in microbes. An example is MRSA (methicillin-resistant staph), an infection that increasingly strikes patients in hospitals. The current MRSA outbreak has taken the lives of tens of thousands across the U.S., and frighteningly, has no known cure.
We must slow or stop our overuse of antibiotics if we’re going to continue using these important drugs as a means to protect human health. So what does this have to do with our food?
The Union of Concerned Scientists reports that 70% of all antibiotics in the U.S. are used preventively as growth-promoters for pigs, poultry and cattle, and to ward off disease caused by cramped and dirty conditions in factory farms. In June 2001, the American Medical Association went on record opposing the routine feeding of medically important antibiotics to livestock and poultry.
PAMTA would limit the use of antibiotics on livestock we consume to ensure that we are not inadvertently creating antibiotic-resistant diseases that we can’t fight with modern medicine. Passing the bill would be a huge step toward a cleaner, more sane food system.
Learn more about antibiotic-use in farming, antibiotic-resistance microbes, and PAMTA:
* Fair Food Fight: USDA Audit Finds Public at Risk from Tainted Beef
* University of Chicago: MRSA History Timeline
* Union of Concerned Scientists: Preservation of Antibiotics for Medical Treatment Act
* Infectious Diseases Society of America: Bad Bugs, No Drugs
* Read SUPERBUG by Maryn McKenna (and our review of this book)
Ready to take action?
