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Effects of meat consumption on the environment
Environmental impact of meat essay
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Original Topic: Antibiotics used in livestock used for meat is becoming a growing concern as to the safety of the product for consumers. Antibiotics can help animals who are being raised for meat grow better and stay healthy, but it also can have negative impacts on the meat produced.
Current Topic: no change needed
References
Pro-argument
Category 2 South Dakota State University. Beef Procedures: Antibiotic Use.
Category 3 SF Gate by San Francisco Chronicle. Debate over using Anti-Microbial in Livestock: Supporting Anti-Microbial
Category 4 Animal Health Institute. About Animal Medicines: Pharmaceuticals
Category 6 Meat News Network- Dr. Randy Singer, DVM. Myth: 80 Percent of Antibiotics Are Used in Animals
Category 7 The Feeding Tube. Antibiotics in Beef
Con-argument
Category 2 Center for Disease Control and Production. Antibiotic use in Food-Producing Animals
Category 3 David A. Kessler (The New York Times). Antibiotics and the Meat We Eat
Category 5 Maryn McKenna of Wired. CDC Threat Report: Yes, Agricultural Antibiotics Play a Role in Drug Resistance
Category 7 Potluck Video. Understanding Antibiotics in Meat
Category 7 Discovery News. How Much Antibiotics Are In Your Meat?
Pro: Antibiotics use in meat animals can help the animals grow larger quicker or provide better health to the animals
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Antibiotics can be used to speed up growth in animals so that the maximum amount of weight can be put on the animal in the shortest amount of time. In this case, the antibiotics are fed at low levels and this can be the most dangerous way to disperse antibiotics to the animal. Antibiotic resistance is becoming a large concern for many consuming meats from animals that contain bacteria that is drug resistant could cause a problem for human
Makousky, David Tangley, Laura Loeb, Penny Holstein, William J. Thorton, Jeannye, "Hay feed might stop infections from meat." U.S. News & World Report 125.11(1998): middlesearchplus. EBSCO.web.27.Oct.2011
A growing issue in the world today is the use of antibiotics and growth hormones in animal production industry. However, for over sixty years Americans have been exposed to hormones on a regular basic when they consume beef. (Organic Consumer Association) On average eighty percent of all feedlot cattle are given hormones to help them grow at an increased rate. (Communication Foundation) “In 1988 the European Union banned the use of all hormone growth promoters.” (Organic Consumer Association)
Every beef cattle produced is injected with steroids. With the injection of steroids it makes the cow grow at an alarming rate, and helps turn food into muscle at a quicker rate. But this is the obvious information. What are they putting into both dairy cattle and beef cattle that could cause harm to us? There is a harmful hormone called IGF. Now, this hormone is not directly put into the cattle. But, all cattle are given rBGH (to put simply it helps them produce more milk/meat). But, rBGH is directly linked to IGF, a hormone that mimics the effects of the growth of human hormones in dangerous ways. It is said that cattle containing rBGH produce 10 times to IGF than cattle without rBGH. “In a 2004 study, patients with above-average IGF levels had nearly a 50% higher risk of prostate cancer and a 65% higher risk of hormone-dependent premenopausal breast cancer than people with below-average levels.” says Carina Storrs of Health.com. Also, a lot of cattle are dosed with high amounts of antibiotics, like penicillin. It is said that a lot of the antibiotics that humans use become ineffective from being exposed to antibiotic resistant bacteria from eating beef! These are just a few of MANY drugs put into cattle. Do you see how consuming high amounts of beef could be harmful to
Another campaign developed by the CDC is the Transatlantic Taskforce on Antimicrobial Resistance (TATFAR). This task force focused on urgent antimicrobial resistance issues and appropriate therapeutic use of antimicrobial drugs in the medical and veterinary communities. Also, prevention of both healthcare- and community-associated drug-resistant infections, and strategies for improving the pipeline of new antimicrobial drugs()
Visser, Nick. "After Fears Of Antibiotic Resistance, 25 Drug Companies To Phase Out Use In Livestock." The Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, 27 Mar. 2014. Web. 20 May 2014. .
Bacterial resistance to antibiotics has presented many problems in our society, including an increased chance of fatality due to infections that could have otherwise been treated with success. Antibiotics are used to treat bacterial infections, but overexposure to these drugs give the bacteria more opportunities to mutate, forming resistant strains. Through natural selection, those few mutated bacteria are able to survive treatments of antibiotics and then pass on their genes to other bacterial cells through lateral gene transfer (Zhaxybayeva, 2011). Once resistance builds in one patient, it is possible for the strain to be transmitted to others through improper hygiene and failure to isolate patients in hospitals.
For as long as there have been horse slaughterhouses in the United States, they have been an issue of controversy (Associated Press State and Local Wire, 8/7/01). Currently, only two slaughterhouses that produce horse meat intended...
However, health concerned organizations want to ban the use of these products due to the increasing fears that they can cause harm to the consumers. For over 50 years, antibiotics have been added to the food of animals such as poultry, cattle and pigs. The main purpose for doing so is to lower the risk of disease in animals. Farm animals are housed together in overcrowded areas, which are very dirty. The hygiene level can get to such a poor state that they are often in contact with their own excreta as well as excreta of the other animals they are housed with and because of tight single air space they share, the likelihood of catching diseases from one another is further increased and very often a whole heard can be infected at one time.
In the last decade, the number of prescriptions for antibiotics has increases. Even though, antibiotics are helpful, an excess amount of antibiotics can be dangerous. Quite often antibiotics are wrongly prescribed to cure viruses when they are meant to target bacteria. Antibiotics are a type of medicine that is prone to kill microorganisms, or bacteria. By examining the PBS documentary Hunting the Nightmare Bacteria and the article “U.S. government taps GlaxoSmithKline for New Antibiotics” by Ben Hirschler as well as a few other articles can help depict the problem that is of doctors prescribing antibiotics wrongly or excessively, which can led to becoming harmful to the body.
Wein, Harrison, Ph.D. "Risk in Red Meat? - National Institutes of Health" U.S National Library
Meat cultivation uses more land, water and resources to house, transport, and slaughter animals and their grain and food than it would cost to fund in vitro meat studies. In April 2008 the In Vitro Consortium first met at the Norwegian Food Research Institute. The consortium is “an international alliance of environmentally concerned scientists striving to facilitate the establishment of a large scale process industry for the production of muscle tissue for human consumption through concerted R&D efforts and attraction of funding fuels to these efforts. ”Meat in both its production and its consumption has a number of destructive effects on not only the environment and humans but also live stock. Some of these effects are antibiotic resistant bacteria due to the overuse of antibiotics in livestock, meat-borne pathogens (e. coli), and diseases associated with diets rich in animal fats (diabetes).
the fda reports that 92 our of every 100 drugs that pass animal tests fail in humans
Penicillin, a vital antibiotic for infection is toxic to ginea pigs. Animal testing isn’t reliable option for human medication or products. Animals have different genetic make up than humans. Mike Leavitt, The Health and Human Service Secretary, states “ Nine out of ten experimental drug fail in clinical studies because we cannot accurately predict how they will behave in people based on laboratory and animal studies.” (Animal Research is Unethical and Scientifically Unnecessary). Humans have obvious differenced than animals like physiology and anatomy. These differences are the reason drug testing on animals isn’t equal when medication or product is used in a human trial. Pfizer reported in 2004 that they “wasted more than $2 billion over the past decade on drugs that “failed in advanced human testing or, in a few instances, were forced off the market, because of liver toxicity problems” (Animal Research is Unethical and Scientifically Unnecessary). Some drugs have caused serious and unexpected health problems even after they were tested on animals. Animal
The most effective way to combat pathogenic bacteria which invade the body is the use of antibiotics. Overexposure to antibiotics can easily lead to resistant strains of bacteria. Resistance is dangerous because bacteria can easily spread from person to person. Simple methods for preventing excessive bacterial spread are often overlooked. Not all preventative measures are even adequate. Doctors and patients often use antibiotics unnecessarily or incorrectly, leading to greater resistance. Antibiotics are used heavily in livestock and this excessive antibiotic use can create resistant bacteria and transfer them to humans. In order to reduce resistant bacteria,
The use of Animals in medicine is considered to be one of the most important things for the advancement in medical rese...