Are antibiotics in beef harmful to humans?
Doctors frequently prescribe antibiotics to humans to help treat infections and other illnesses. However, widespread use of antibiotics in animals that aren’t sick is a cause for concern. There is growing awareness that raising animals on low levels of antibiotics may cause human resistance to certain antibodies. This means that, over time, increased exposure to antibiotics may make bacteria immune to the drugs that could be used to treat humans in the event of illness. In 1996, the Food and Drug Administration, U.S. Department of Agriculture and U. S. Centers for Disease Control combined forces to create the National Antimicrobial Resistance Monitoring System to study the problem. In 1997 and 1998, the World Health Organization recommended that no antibiotic used in human medicine be used as an animal growth promoter. Although these issues are still being studied, Vossler Angus believes it’s best to raise animals the way nature intended, without synthetic hormones or antibiotics.
