Meat Mythcrushers

Below is an approximation of this video’s audio content. To see any graphs, charts, graphics, images, and quotes to which Dr. Greger may be referring, watch the above video.

Recently, meat industry groups launched a new PR campaign to “crush myths about meat”; countering, for example, the notion put forth by the World Health Organization, American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Public Health Association, etc. that antibiotics fed to livestock by the truckload poses a human health risk.

These are the drugs approved for use in farm animals. And they’re fed to farm animals by the millions of pounds a year, to promote growth and prevent disease in the stressful, overcrowded, unhygienic environments they may be confined in these days.

The PR people scoffed at the Union of Concerned Scientists estimate that as much as 70% of antibiotics produced in the U.S. go to livestock. Now, the reason that it had to be estimated, of course, is that the industry refuses to release the true numbers. But, look, it was the best we had.

But, it is a statistic the mythbusters claim cannot possibly be calculated, considering that antibiotic use in humans is not tracked. Turns out, as with much in meat myth-making, this simply isn’t true. That data is tracked by the FDA Office of Surveillance and Epidemiology, as pointed out by the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health Center for a Livable Future.

So, was it really 70% of antimicrobial drugs going to farm animals, like the Union of Concerned Scientists claimed? Or, was this just a myth to be crushed? And, I have to say, according to the latest available data, the meat industry is right. It’s not 70% going to farm animals—it’s closer to 80%. More than 28 million pounds a year.

But, then again, why listen to the American Medical Association when it comes to your health, when you can listen to the American Meat Science Association?

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• 2009 Summary Report on Antimicrobials Sold or Distributed for Use in Food-Producing Animals. U.S. Food and Drug Administration. 2010.
• Loglisci, R. New FDA Numbers Reveal Food Animals Consume Lion’s Share of Antibiotics. John Hopkins Center for a Livable Future. 2010, December 23.
• Meat Groups Launch Effort To Crush Myths about Meat. National Hog Farmer. 2011, May 3.
• Myth: Antibiotic Use In Livestock Production Is Increasing And This Is A Human Health Risk. Meat Mythcrushers

Image thanks to James Bowe via flickr

• American Medical Association
• antibiotics
• factory farming practices
• FDA
• feed additives
• industry influence
• meat
• nutrition myths
• World Health Organization