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Post by gakaren on Apr 30, 2015 9:15:31 GMT -5
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Post by lilolpeapicker on May 2, 2015 6:48:40 GMT -5
It is very nice to see some businesses turning things around for the better. Let's hope it continues.
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Post by kimmsr🕊 on May 4, 2015 5:54:06 GMT -5
Carefully read what these people say, " Tyson will no longer use human antibiotics in raising its meat birds." That does not mean they will be eliminating all antibiotics.
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Post by lilolpeapicker on May 4, 2015 10:04:32 GMT -5
Hmmmmm
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Post by SpringRain🕊️ on May 4, 2015 10:50:23 GMT -5
Carefully read what these people say, " Tyson will no longer use human antibiotics in raising its meat birds." That does not mean they will be eliminating all antibiotics. This is an example of a carefully crafted statement, probably prepared by legal counsel which spent some time on how to pretend to acquiesce to safety and move forward, yet still preserve practices which allow them to reap the revenues and declare dividends that stockholders want to see.
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Post by desertwoman on May 4, 2015 11:06:07 GMT -5
Good point kimm.
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Post by brownrexx on May 4, 2015 16:05:35 GMT -5
This is an example of a carefully crafted statement, probably prepared by legal counsel which spent some time on how to pretend to acquiesce to safety and move forward, yet still preserve practices which allow them to reap the revenues and declare dividends that stockholders want to see. Sad but probably true.
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Post by oliverman on May 4, 2015 23:08:31 GMT -5
Indeed, this is not a statement that declares no antibiotics will ever be used. However, I think that we should give fair credit to a company for voluntarily following the emerging recommendations of leading health advisors. The great concern with antibiotic use, is that resistance will develop over time, thereby rendering them useless. Reserving those that are important for human use, specifically for that purpose will slow the development of resistance. Use of antibiotics that are not useful for use in human medicine, is not so grave of an issue. I understand that there is room for improvement in production methods, but to declare that zero use of antibiotics in animal agriculture is the ideal situation, is just plain wrong!
My sheep and cattle do receive antibiotics when they are sick. Should I refuse to treat them with antibiotics so I can say that they are raised without antibiotics and consider the death losses just a cost of doing business, which is added to the price of the product? This is the ultimate end of zero antibiotic use. The only other option is to administer the antibiotic treatment and then market those animals without attaching the "antibiotic free" label. To choose this route is a tacit admission that some antibiotic use is indeed tolerable from an ethical perspective. FYI, the current organic certification rules require livestock farmers to administer antibiotics when warranted for treatment of illness, then market that animal through a non organic market.
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Post by brownrexx on May 5, 2015 7:23:18 GMT -5
Excellent points OM. I think that people mostly object to animals being given preventative antibiotics. I don't know about others but I certainly don't see a problem with sick animals being given antibiotics. I have given antibiotics to my chickens and even my bees.
When I visited a cheese factory in Costa Rica, farmers brought milk from their farms to the cheese factory and it was tested for antibiotics before being used. Farmers were permitted to use them on sick cattle but then they could not sell their milk to the cheese factory for 30 days. If they brought milk and it tested positive for antibiotics then they would be banned from selling their milk there for a year which is a HUGE penalty for a small country farmer so they rarely had any problem with it.
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Post by oliverman on May 5, 2015 23:49:17 GMT -5
Interesting, how the farmers bring the milk to the cheese factory there. The rules about antibiotic residues in milk are not too much different here. I am pretty sure milk is the most heavily tested of the animal products on the grocery shelf. When dad milked cows when I was a kid, the milk truck driver took a sample from the tank before loading. The individual samples were then tested before unloading at the processor. If any sample tested positive, the whole load would be discarded and the farmer whose milk contaminated the load was responsible for the cost of the discarded milk. Additionally, the state agriculture department would be notified and could revolk the farmer's dairy license.
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Post by brownrexx on May 6, 2015 7:34:37 GMT -5
I never knew anything about cheese making before seeing this place. It was started by a group of Quakers who left the US during the Korean war because they were anti-war.
They started this cheese factory way up in the mountains and a whole town was supported by their factory. It's not a BIG factory but it's not a big town either. We stayed nearby and we had to take a 4 hour drive in a hired van to get there. We spent a week there and it was a fabulously undeveloped area.
Anyway the farmers would show up in pick up trucks with a milk can or two in the back. It's interesting because it was the kind of metal milk cans that people use around here for decorations on their porches. People paint scenery on them.
Here's a pic to show you how we saw the rain forest from above. It was near the cheese factory.
And here's a sample meal. Notice the home made cheese which was common at all meals and also the black beans which were also very common:
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Post by octave on May 6, 2015 8:26:33 GMT -5
Brownrexx in the plate I see rice, tomato salad (pico de gallo?), beans, cheese and fried plantains?
Oliverman, are all of the livestock's diseases treated with antibiotics? Even for us humans, we have different medications for a variety of diseases: sulfa drugs, cortisone, anti-inflammatory, etc: do you farmers use any of them?
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Post by brownrexx on May 6, 2015 8:38:18 GMT -5
Yes, the fried plantains were fabulous and they just called that a "salad" and it came with most of the meals. I really liked their food there - lots of veggies. Alternately, when we were in Puerto Rico most of the food seemed starchy with lots of root veggies and not many green ones. Cost Rica had some of our favorite food from anywhere we have traveled. It all seemed very fresh. Local mountain grown coffee and home made yogurt were some of the breakfast selections. Good stuff.
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Post by oliverman on May 6, 2015 10:20:31 GMT -5
Antibiotics are not the only medications used for livestock, but probably the most frequently used, other than vaccines. Respiratory diseases and hoof infections caused by bacteria are the troubles we most frequently experience with our cattle and sheep that require antibiotic treatment.
Sheep and goats are quite susceptible to internal parasites and require treatment with parasiticides at times. Careful pasture management reduces the need for treatments, but is not sufficient in a humid climate. The only way to totally avoid using parasiticides without losing productivity is to feed in confinement with zero grazing.
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Post by kimmsr🕊 on May 8, 2015 6:42:47 GMT -5
Places like Tyson, chicken factories not farms, regularly dose the animals with antibiotics to aid in control of disease as well as to promote faster growth. If a farmer, a real farmer not someone running a food factory, uses antibiotics when the animals need them and not routinely there is no problem. The problem is when those antibiotics are used daily, as a regular part of the food these animals get.
The same thing applies with the antibiotic soaps, the baddies are exposed to low levels of antibiotics and develop immunities to them so we need to develop stronger antibiotics to control them.
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