Greetings,

Most doctors commonly warn their patients never to take antibiotics if they are not actually sick. Yet that is exactly what is happening on industrial farms where food animals often are given low doses of antibiotics over long periods of time to speed growth and to compensate for unsanitary and crowded conditions. In fact, up to 70 percent of all antibiotics consumed in the U.S. are given to healthy farm animals, not people.

As a result, new deadly strains of antibiotic-resistant bacteria develop in the animals and can transfer to people through eating and handling meat, contact with food animals, eating food grown in contaminated manure or drinking water polluted by farm runoff. Once the bacteria are loose in the environment, they can exchange resistance with other bacteria, creating a major health crisis.

Legislation exists that would address this problem. The Preservation of Antibiotics for Medical Treatment Act (PAMTA, H.R. 1549, S. 619) would withdraw the use of seven classes of antibiotics vitally important to human health from food animal production unless animals or herds are sick with diagnosed disease or unless drug companies can prove that their routine use does not harm human health. Hundreds of groups already support this legislation including the American Medical Association, American Academy of Pediatricians, Infectious Diseases Society of America, the American Nurses Association and the World Health Organization.

Now, we need your help. Please contact your representatives and ask them to cosponsor PAMTA.

Thank you for your help.

Laura Rogers
Pew Campaign for Human Health and Industrial Farming

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