Does adding routine antibiotics to animal feed pose a serious risk to human health?

You cannot dispute the warning of England’s chief medical officer, Sally Davies, that antibiotic resistance is one of modern health’s greatest threats. Also beyond dispute is her analysis of its causes—the lack of new drugs combined with massive overuse of existing antibiotics. What physicians and policy makers generally overlook, however, is the critical role played by the ongoing overuse of antibiotics in livestock and poultry production. Enforceable measures to reduce this overuse must be core to any effort to avert the coming catastrophe. Because meat production is global in nature, these measures must be implemented nationally and supranationally.