WASHINGTON — The Food and Drug Administration is urging meat producers to limit the amount of antibiotics they give animals in response to public health concerns about the drugs.
The FDA said antibiotics in meat pose a "serious public health threat" because the drugs create antibiotic-resistant bacteria that can infect humans who eat it.
And if the meat producers don't pay any attention? The FDA will issue a strongly-worded urging! POW! Take that, meat producers!
Seriously, meat producers are super-injecting the antibiotics because of the slop that passes for cattle feed, not to mention the cramped, disease-prone conditions in which the cattle are being raised. It's the antibiotics that are keeping these animals alive. If the FDA wants the meat producers to cut back on the antibiotics, they should mandate better conditions and food that cattle are actually designed to digest (cattle aren't meant to eat grains -- or other cattle). But the FDA won't do that. Hence, these ineffectual "urgings."