Farmers do this for a number of reasons:

- Constantly feeding livestock antibiotics makes them grow bigger. The mechanism for why this happens is not understood (but who cares because bigger livestock means more money).

- It is costly to deal with an animal after it gets an infection rather than just being preventative.

- Farmers are scared about diseases sweeping through their herds and causing issues where they are forced to kill the whole herd (e.g. mad cow disease -- though antibiotics don't prevent prion diseases).

This is not the practice everywhere worldwide. The US is particularly bad when it comes to antibiotics in livestock.

It's a harmful practice and should be outlawed. Even if it means paying more for your food.

I would much rather pay 1% more for my food than 10% more for may healthcare. For many there will be no amount that can be paid to keep up with antibiotic resistant bacteria, it will kill people.

I am sure that farmer's would rather risk their livestock than risk their children or grandchildren.

I think the only way this practice can exist is when people do not understand or are coerced into doing it. Many of the largest farms just have people following rote instructions and not actually understanding what is happening.

Let's compare to an easier to understand industry, think about fast food. The people in the kitchen at a McDonald's don't need to know how to cook, they follow the instructions and put uncooked meat in a machine and food comes out of the machine. If that process killed kittens somehow the McDonalds worker would never know.

I suspect the near minimum wage workers manning livestock farms and farmers that might not have the benefit of a full education, simply don't or don't accept that antibiotic abuse creates a breeding ground for something will kill some of their children.

>I am sure that farmer's would rather risk their livestock than risk their children or grandchildren.

you're kidding right? sure economical impact today vs. theoretical risk to grand/children tomorrow - Nov 8 will show how many people and of what demographics what choice would make, and I'm somehow sure what choice the farmers would make :)

I am not kidding. I am in one of those red states at the moment and most people doing the farming literally do not believe or accept anthropogenic global warming.

When the discussion is calm enough, they do largely agree that they wouldn't do anything harmful to their children or their farm's legacy. The just don't think global warming is real so their low mpg cars don't contribute to harming their farm.

Combine this with the fact that people defending a stance often become emotionally entrenched and likely they will continue to believe global warming is not real until they can no longer plant corn. Then once that emotionally devastates them, or some similarly life shattering cognitive dissonance destroying event occurs, they can take a look with fresh eyes.

EDIT - I know this is mostly about glbobal warming and the original discussion related to antibiotic resistance, but largely the resistance is from uneducated super-conservative people with a fundamental religion and a fundamental distrust of science. I really see these two problems as two sides of the same coin.

that should NOT be a smiley at the end

that is dialectical smile - for example, ignoring climate change by voting red the farmers from the mid-states are thus letting the climate change to proceed to the point where open-air farming in those states becomes impossible, and thus they are basically selecting themselves out...

If I had to speculate I would say that they grow bigger since the animal requires to spend less energy in its immune system, resulting in a surplus of energy that is spent in growth.

I'm sure there are multiple theories, but so far as I know the they are just that.

So just vote to outlaw antibiotics use in healthy livestock and make sure there is a rigorous inspection apparatus?

Farmers are few, people who get diseases are many. Shouldn't be too hard.

"The thoughtless person playing with penicillin treatment is morally responsible for the death of a man who succumbs to infection with a penicillin-resistant organism."

- Sir Alexander Fleming

It should be noted that Fleming discovered Pencillin and the statement is especially prescient coming from him. He spoke countless times around the world trying to raise awareness that antibiotic resistance would be inevitable when used improperly.

The nightmare scenario is medical science gets rolled back by a century as non-trivial infections return to being a death sentence.

OK and how do you locate and invoice all of these morally responsible individuals who have led to this resistance? It's hundreds of thousands of doctors. I doubt their malpractice insurance will cover this. And then aside from the unnecessary prescriptions, because the ignorant patient-consumer demanded it, is the ignorant patient-consumer who doesn't take the entire prescribed dosage which is itself the far bigger problem that lead to resistance. How are they punished and insured for their immorality?

I think you've mistaken moral for legal. We don't punish immorality except through social and cultural pressure, or to make it a legal issue, and then we aren't punishing morality so much as legality (even if rooted in morality).

>Farmers are few, people who get diseases are many. Shouldn't be too hard.

"Concentrated benefits, dispersed costs." Farmers are highly organized and vigilant in defense of their subsidies and regulations, whereas sick people are not similarly organized and the policy connection to their condition isn't obvious. Concentrated benefits are what create special interests, which by their nature put their own interest ahead of the national interest.

Agro lobby is pretty powerful in the US. The people lobby - our dear senate, republican and democrat simply sells out.

Why does it seem like every damn thing we do for farmers is awful for others?

I know it's not, we reap the benefits in lower food prices, but does beef really need to be cheap enough we can eat it 7 days a week?

>I know it's not, we reap the benefits in lower food prices, but does beef really need to be cheap enough we can eat it 7 days a week?

No it is. The total cost to society has to include healthcare costs as well. Saying, 'This lowers our cost at the dinner table' is only looking at part of the equation.

Never mind that people don't eat dinner together which is a by product of having super cheap convenient packaged calories available. Eating as a family increases child development significantly, it's like the cheapest thing you can do to give kids a good start.

Never mind that we don't really need nearly as much corn as we produce. When the farm bill came out and started picking agricultural winners, we turned garbage farm land into prime producers of a crop that we don't need. Then we added tariffs to sugar imports, then we put corn into everything, providing a cheap source of calories and diabetes, heart disease, perhaps cancer (most of the links here are still from correlation and haven't been proven as causation). Corn moved from a side dish to being in everything you eat unless you are cooking all (most) of your own food.

We have the (possible) super bug issue from our meat sources.

It takes like 50 gallons of water to grow an avocado but we do that anyways because irrigation water is subsidized in many states even as we start to drain our reservoirs.

It takes 2 calories of fossil fuel to make one calorie of food. We do this because it's still cost effective because of subsidies.

The whole picture makes it look not quite as cheap, we've just pushed the cost into other categories to hide it.

> It takes 2 calories of fossil fuel to make one calorie of food. We do this because it's still cost effective because of subsidies.

I think "we do this because we can't eat fossil fuels no matter how many calories they provide, so trading total energy content for ability to serve as food is valuable, independent of subsidy" would be more accurate.

Partly, but we can grow food in a more efficient way. It's currently cost prohibitive because we use feed lots, and subsidies water and fuel for farming.

What about photosynthesis?

I think you have an unrealistic view of what mother nature is like. Wild animals (i.e. not in feed lots) succumb to disease, including bacteria infections all the time. Even with free-range animals, you'd have a ton of livestock dying (and suffering needlessly) if you never allowed antibiotics to be used.

I think the idea is to ban their use for purely profit reasons (though that leaves a loophole where medical care is claimed when the intent is just to increase growth of the animals for profit).

Medical care of sick animals is a "purely profit reason".