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Meat and dairy tainted with antibiotics: Magazine
By Wang Xiang |
April 12, 2010, Monday
|
Online Edition
Online Edition
CHINA'S meat and dairy products are often tainted with antibiotics as farmers give animals regular doses to prevent disease, a state news magazine warned today.
Farmers put erythromycin in the feed to prevent the animals from getting sick, a chicken farmer in northern Shaanxi Province told today's issue of Outlook Weekly.
The village was an important chicken production base in the province as more than half the 800 families were in the business. All farmers were secretly using the antibiotics, which could increase the number of drug-resistant germs.
In another dairy village in Shaanxi Province, penicillin was used as a panacea for almost every disease. A cowherd named Xu Yifeng told the magazine that his 14 cows consumed more than a dozen buckets of penicillin last year.
Shaanxi is a big animal farm base in China with 11 million cows and 60 million poultry.
The abuse of antibiotics has become a routine in farming around the country, which is worrying because the residue could affect humans significantly, according to Wang Jinjue, the dean of a veterinary science school.
Wang said eating antibiotics-tainted products could not only increase the number of drug-resistant germs, but also accumulate in humans and harm organ functions.
Yet some animal farmers said they were forced into using antibiotics.
"I felt the chickens were much weaker than 20 years ago," said farmer Luo Ruifeng. Luo said he was compelled to use the antibiotics or he would suffer heavy losses, citing the death of 3,000 chickens at the beginning of the year.
Antibiotics are banned from livestock feed in more than 90 countries belonging to the World Health Organization.
Chinese law also stipulates that meat or dairy products should not be consumed within three days of antibiotics being given to animals.
Farmers put erythromycin in the feed to prevent the animals from getting sick, a chicken farmer in northern Shaanxi Province told today's issue of Outlook Weekly.
The village was an important chicken production base in the province as more than half the 800 families were in the business. All farmers were secretly using the antibiotics, which could increase the number of drug-resistant germs.
In another dairy village in Shaanxi Province, penicillin was used as a panacea for almost every disease. A cowherd named Xu Yifeng told the magazine that his 14 cows consumed more than a dozen buckets of penicillin last year.
Shaanxi is a big animal farm base in China with 11 million cows and 60 million poultry.
The abuse of antibiotics has become a routine in farming around the country, which is worrying because the residue could affect humans significantly, according to Wang Jinjue, the dean of a veterinary science school.
Wang said eating antibiotics-tainted products could not only increase the number of drug-resistant germs, but also accumulate in humans and harm organ functions.
Yet some animal farmers said they were forced into using antibiotics.
"I felt the chickens were much weaker than 20 years ago," said farmer Luo Ruifeng. Luo said he was compelled to use the antibiotics or he would suffer heavy losses, citing the death of 3,000 chickens at the beginning of the year.
Antibiotics are banned from livestock feed in more than 90 countries belonging to the World Health Organization.
Chinese law also stipulates that meat or dairy products should not be consumed within three days of antibiotics being given to animals.
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