Many consumers want to know whether antibiotics were used in producing the meat we eat. Now a California law is about to make it easier to find antibiotic-free meat.
This weekend, California is expected to adopt a state law severely limiting the use of antibiotics in meat production, according to Time magazine. Major food companies including McDonald’s, Tyson and Foster Farms have previously announced voluntary steps to source meat from producers that avoid antibiotics, but California’s law will make the state the first with legal limits on the use of the drugs.
In much livestock farming, most antibiotics are used not to treat disease but to avoid health problems related to crowded conditions or to promote faster growth. Under the California law, antibiotics could be used only with a veterinarian’s prescription.
Growing rates of antibiotic-resistant diseases in humans has spotlighted the use of the drugs in livestock production. Many public health experts are concerned that the massive use of antibiotics in factory farming for growth promotion and sub-therapeutic uses could spur the spread of resistant diseases from animals to humans.
More than two million people annually are infected with resistant bacteria, with 20,000 deaths. California’s position as the country’s largest agricultural state suggests the state’s law may have an impact nationwide.