 When farm animals are fed antibiotics, they can develop antibiotic-resistant bacteria in their guts, and then the gut bacteria can become manure on meat, which can spread to humans. Even vegetarian humans, since drug-resistant bacteria and animal feces can also spread to people through crops, or the environment. The exhaust fans can blow MRSA superbugs straight out into the surrounding area from pig operations or poultry operations. You can find MRSA floating around outside these sheds, containing thousands of turkeys or chickens. This may explain why in Europe a human MRSA infection has been tied to just living in a region with industrial pig production, whether or not people have direct contact with livestock. These findings may not just be limited to Europe, though, where their factory farms pale in comparison to what we have here in the States, but we didn't know for sure until now. Proximity is swine manure application to crop fields and livestock operations with each associated with MRSA and skin and soft tissue infections in people here in the US. These findings contribute to the growing concern about the potential public health impacts of this high-density livestock production. Achievements in modern medicine, such as surgery and the treatment of preterm babies, which we today take for granted, would not be possible without access to effective treatment for bacterial infections. Within just a few years, we might be faced with dire setbacks, and that's real and unprecedented that global coordinated actions are immediately taken to protect these wonder drugs. So, the use of antibiotics just to promote the growth of farm animals to slaughter weight should be banned worldwide, as happened in the EU. Europe stopped feeding pigs and chickens, tetracycline and pysilin to promote growth about 40 years ago, something we continue to do to this day. The Pew Commission recently published a five-year update on their landmark Blue Ribbon Commission report on current agricultural practices that found the present system producing food animals in the United States presents an unacceptable risk to public health. Their number one recommendation was to ban this non-therapeutic use of antibiotics, but agricultural lobbies are not going to give up the use of antibiotics without a fight. In December 2013, the FDA released guidance for industry. They're voluntary guidance for industry. They recommend antibiotics no longer be used to just fatten animals for slaughter, but emphasize that they're just that, toothless, non-legally enforceable suggestions. This voluntary approach has come under withering criticism from the public health and medical communities concerned about the increase in antibiotic resistant bacterial pathogens. The USDA is considering even going backwards, eliminating the requirement to even test for stephorias at all in federal school lunch program. They understand that at school age, children are considered a sensitive population, hence more stringent requirements, including sampling and testing, may be required to help us your safety and public confidence. However, the cost of such programs must be weighed against the cost of buying the food needed to support the program. As one University of Iowa epidemiologist said, although human health should take priority over farm animals, farmers will be reluctant to change until researchers can come up with safe and cost-effective practices to replace the use of antibiotics. How much are antibiotics really saving the industry? The net bottom line benefit from the use of antibiotic feed additives may only be about 25 cents per animal, which means eliminating the risky practice of feeding antibiotics by the ton of arm animals would raise the price of meat less than a penny per pound.