From what is known about anti-microbials and how they have leached into the aquafer from animal waste, common sense tells us that it would be difficult, if not impossible to verify any meat animal grown in the US as "Antibiotic Free". "Antibiotc Free" claims in this pharmaceutically polluted environment are truly "unverifiable".

Major health institutions, including the AMA and the Mayo Clinic have long been outspoken about the serious risk to public health of continued use of sub-therapeutic antibiotics in food animals. This continued use exposes the entire population to low-dose antibiotics through the environment. This, in turn, has been linked to the alarming rise of antibiotic resistant bacterial infections and deaths.

Recent academic research has shown that residual antibiotics can be found in ground-water where commercial manure has been used as fertilizer, and around poultry farms and beef and swine feedlots. This groundwater flows into streams and rivers and public drinking water. In this antibiotic polluted environment, nothing can be verified as "antibiotic free."

The best we can hope for is "raised without antibiotics."

The growing consumer demand for organically grown meat and meat "raised without antibiotics" is driving the market. Producers are finding that consumers are willing to pay a premium price for meat that has not been grown using antibiotics.

Just as there is a growing demand for products "raised without antibiotics" there is also a growing voice, sponsored by the pharmaceutical industry, to discredit the scientific evidence supporting this movement. It is understandable that in a free marketplace there would be strong lobbying and propaganda on both sides of the issue. However, the pharmacuetical companies (e.g. Alpharma) have resorted to "name-calling" and perpetration of myth to combat the ever increasing body of scientific evidence linking the use of low-dose growth-promoting antibiotics in food animals and the serious rise in antibiotic-resistant bacterial illnesses and deaths. Alpharma continues to refer to the growing body of academic researchers and medical professionals speaking out against this irresponsible practice as "professional hand-wringers."

Though there is sometimes exageration on both sides of many arguements, it is clear that this issue continues to gather momentum as the scientific evidence grows. The risks to public health can no longer be ignored just to preserve the profits of pharmaceutical manufacturers. It is time for honest scientifically based public discourse such as that which continues to occur in the European Union over this very issue.

Who could possibly wish to preserve an ineffective practice that continues to cause public health risk and benefits no one.....well, no one but the manufacturers of tons of antibiotics finding their way into our food chain and our water supply.

-zties