Corn, Potatoes, Lettuce Among Crops That Absorb Animal Antibiotics From Industrial Farming - U Minn

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For half a century, meat producers have fed antibiotics to farm animals to increase their growth and stave off infections. Now scientists have discovered that those drugs are sprouting up in unexpected places. Vegetables such as corn, potatoes and lettuce absorb antibiotics when grown in soil fertilized with livestock manure, according to tests conducted at the University of Minnesota.

Today, close to 70 percent of the total antibiotics and related drugs produced in the United States are fed to cattle, pigs and poultry, according to the Union of Concerned Scientists. Although this practice sustains a growing demand for meat, it also generates public health fears associated with the expanding presence of antibiotics in the food chain.

People have long been exposed to antibiotics in meat and milk. Now, the new research shows that they also may be ingesting them from vegetables, perhaps even ones grown on organic farms.

The Minnesota researchers planted corn, green onion and cabbage in manure-treated soil in 2005 to evaluate the environmental impacts of feeding antibiotics to livestock. Six weeks later, the crops were analyzed and found to absorb chlortetracycline, a drug widely used to treat diseases in livestock. In another study in 2007, corn, lettuce and potato were planted in soil treated with liquid hog manure. They, too, accumulated concentrations of an antibiotic, named Sulfamethazine, also commonly used in livestock. As the amount of antibiotics in the soil increased, so too did the levels taken up by the corn, potatoes and other plants.

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http://www.environmentalhealthnews.org/ehs/news/antibiotics-in-crops

[OKIsItJustMe]

1. Dup

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=115x181872

[quidam56]

2. ENOUGH

In our health care system, profit care comes ahead of patient care. http://www.wisecountyissues.com MRSA is killing more Americans than AIDS, the profit machines and politicians don't care, we are ranked 37th in health care in the world just behind Cuba, so the BEST care you get in America isn't as good as Cuba's health care system. Antibiotics are becoming worthless and useless. We need a cure for health care, or at least a higher level of standards than what is acceptable ( on record ) in East Tennessee.