"Championed for over 10 years by the late Senator Edward Kennedy, the Preservation of Antibiotics for Medical Treatment Act (PAMTA) is a federal bill that would phase out the common practice of constantly feeding antibiotics to food animals when they aren’t sick.

Large-scale livestock and poultry producers have become overly reliant on antibiotics. By keeping animals on these drugs all the time, factory farms can become ever more overcrowded and unsanitary while circumventing the disease outbreaks that these poor conditions ordinarily would produce. Therefore, curbing the use of antibiotics may prove to be an incentive to raise animals using more humane and sustainable methods.

This is not only an animal welfare issue, however: it is also an issue of human health. Scientists agree that the overuse of antibiotics in animal agriculture is contributing to the increase in antibiotic-resistant human diseases. These illnesses are especially costly and difficult to treat.

Visit the ASPCA Advocacy Center online to email your U.S. senators and representative urging them to support and cosponsor the Preservation of Antibiotics for Medical Treatment Act. You may use the same link to read about this legislation in greater depth."

via aspca.org

"Antibiotic resistance is a growing crisis. The overuse of antibiotics in both human medicine and animal agriculture contributes to the rise of antibiotic-resistant infections that are costly and difficult to treat. Moreover, the burden of antibiotic resistance is borne by the most vulnerable in our society: children, the elderly, and those with already weakened immune systems, such as people undergoing chemotherapy or persons with HIV/AIDS. But while doctors are actively curtailing unnecessary uses of antibiotics in human medicine, operators of CAFOs (confined animal feeding operations) continue to use vast quantities of these priceless drugs every day in the feed and water of animals that are not even sick ..."

More information via ucsusa.org