Charlotte Would Have Insisted on Antibiotics for Wilbur the Pig in Today's Corporate Web

The American Dream has so often in the past invoked the idea of a family homestead, or farm.  It also would indicate a desire for security and confidence in our food supply.

This piece involves both.

Facebook | Champaign County Farm Bureau: American Farm Bureau Federation Voices Concerns to CBS News, Katie Couric

I must first mention that I have not seen the original CBS report.  However, I hardly think it matters to the points below.

First, we must recognize that this letter comes from industry groups. They represent livestock companies and large factory farms.

(As an aside, I enjoy how they reject the terms "factory farms" and "industrial farms" yet they claim to represent an "industry" – some even have "industry" in their titles. The term they use – "modern" farm -- does not adequately describe the farms they represent, since there is a very big difference from the small family farm and the gigantic industrial farms in this country. The other terms, on the other hand, are indeed accurate; they just don't like them because they have expensive market research studies -- not to mention common sense -- that tells them that they don't play well in the public relations/marketing world. But I digress...)

In any case, the goal of these companies (and the groups that represent them) is to make money. Period. And as it should be. Naturally. They are businesses, after all. Money is the one and only thing we can count on them to value. However, if we recognize that fact, we also must understand that if any other things are to be valued -- public health, animal rights, human life, worker's rights, the environment, public safety -- then the public either as consumers or through their government have to introduce and enforce those values upon industry. Consumers are starting to speak by buying organic, for instance. And all those pesky regulations that industry hates so much -- because it costs them money, naturally -- are what keeps us and our families safe and allows us to sleep at night.

With that in mind, we have to remain ever skeptical of absolutely anything that these industry groups say, understanding that it will ever be in the self-interest of the industry, and therefore in the service of the almighty dollar. (The companies pay these industry groups handsomely to represent them and they darn well want their money's worth) Other values and the interests of us the citizens – let alone truth -- may well be damned, if it doesn't suit their interests. We must take everything they say -- including this letter -- with a grain of salt. (Hell, a whole salt mine wouldn't be a bad idea).

It also must be made clear that these industry groups only really represent the factory farms. Not the average family farm that built this country and created sustainable agriculture. Not the average farmer who works and cares for their own land.  They could care less about them -- except when the interests of the factory farms and the family farms happen to coincide -- and would just as soon put them out to pasture by buying them out or crushing them as to represent them.  Though of course, they love to claim to represent them, and play to American's love of the family farm when they do so (I especially love this photo on the homepage of the Livestock Marketing Assocation).  As an example, the Ohio Farm Bureau (made up mostly of larger corporate farms) is not the Ohio Family Farm Coalition (which represents real people), though they may claim otherwise.

(As another aside, by representing factor farms they also claim to represent "conventional" farms.  Which begs the question: as opposed to what?  Family farms?  Organic farms?  One would assume "unconventional" farms at least.  However -- in support of this term it seems -- they cite that antibiotics have been "used in livestock for half a century," implying it has been a lengthy time.  On the other hand, agriculture has existed for thousands of years without antibiotics.  Now, who is really being "unconventional?")

With that being said, there is an inescapable logic that this letter and the industry ignores (because it is not in their interest). That is, it has been conclusively shown without a doubt that overuse of antibiotics -- whether in humans or in livestock -- promotes the growth of antibiotic resistant bacteria. This is more conclusive in humans, I believe, but what is good for the goose, in this case, is good for the swine. It has become more widely accepted that physicians for this very reason should avoid prescribing antibiotics unless they know that an illness is driven by a bacteria that can be combated by that antibiotic. This has not always been the practice in the past. Physicians have (and still do) prescribe antibiotics for patients begging for medication but who suffer from viruses that only time and rest will cure. And it is not even the case that we give antibiotics to people who aren't even sick, but whom we merely suspect might have been exposed. Or even given to people that have not even been expose, as a mere preventative. To suggest such a thing would be laughable in the medical community. Yet this is regular practice now in the livestock industry. There is a  study in which the Union of Concerned Scientists -- a well-respected non-profit organization with no financial stake in the outcome -- found that 70% of antibiotics are given to livestock that are perfectly healthy.  This is a recipe for disaster. That is, if we value the long-term public health.

But this is not what industry values. As a reminder, they (and rightly so) value the dollar above all. They perceive that antibiotics in the short term seem to promote healthier livestock. They see results of all these and other chemicals and methods in terms of fatter, larger pigs. They have also bought into the sales pitches of other industries that produce and sell the antibiotics and the alleged benefits they produce. This may be good for the bottom line, but is it good for the average American?

Just as pharmaceutical companies can trot out study after study that they pay for and which seem to show that their drugs are wonderful so therefore we all should buy them, the livestock industry can do the same. They can make all kinds of claims about this strain or that strain, and whether it has shown up or not, or been actually proven to spread between livestock and humans. But what if we actually wait for the proof? How many would have had to die of the Black Death before the rat lobby would have admitted that the proof existed that rodents were indeed the ones guilty of spreading the disease? How much of the ice cap has to melt before we have the "proof" we need to show that global warming exists? Does the rising ocean waters actually have to reach our bottom lips? Likewise, with the knowledge that bacteria routinely mutates into hardier and more deadly strains, and that they evolve to jump species from animal to human, how much proof do we need that the next lethal bacteria has actually spread to humans before we take action to prevent what could be the worst health crisis to hit humankind since smallpox and polio reigned or before penicillin existed?

I also know that all of Europe has now adopted the Danish methods that these American industry groups attempt to trash. It hardly makes sense that they would do so if the results weren't worthwhile.

I do not claim to be an expert on this subject. And I do know that antibiotics can be used safely, responsibly, and beneficially in livestock (and humans). However, I will forever remain wary of the claims made by self-interested money-worshipping industries – whether borne in a letter, in a "scientific study," or by the lips of Rush Limbaugh -- that have shown time and again that they are far from truthful and will lie, deceive, and fabricate if it benefits them (can we say the cigarette industry, for but one example), and that money is really all that they love. If I care about values other than money and the welfare of myself and the ones that I love, then it is the only responsible thing to do.