Air date: November 15, 2009

Host: Barbara Lewis

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Interview: Bob Martin, senior officer, Pew Environmental Group;
Executive director, Pew Commission on Industrial Farm Animal Production

How we raise livestock is having an impact on our health.

In this flu season, we’re getting lots of advice to avoid crowded places, because of the possibility of disease spreading quickly from person to person.

Crowded livestock operations can pose the same risk to pigs and chickens and other animals.

So, to protect the animals in "confined animal feeding operations," also known as CAFOs, livestock producers often put antibiotics into their food and water, to make the animals more resistant to common illnesses.

The problem is: since bacteria can develop resistance to those antibiotics, when people consume the food raised in those CAFOs, they ingest the resistant bacteria too.

That can make people more vulnerable to food-borne illnesses such as e-coli and salmonella.

Today, Bob Martin of the Pew Environmental Group explains the reasoning behind non-therapeutic antibiotic use in livestock operations, and he provides some sensible answers to the problem.

Additional Resources:

• Learn more about CAFOs and the spread of antibiotic resistant bacteria.
• Read more in the article, The High Price of Cheap Food, in Time Magazine, August 21, 2009.

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