Kristof blames the overuse of antibiotics in healthy animals for the antibiotic resistance in both people and animals:
[T]he central problem here isn’t pigs, it’s humans. Unlike Europe and even South Korea, the United States still bows to agribusiness interests by permitting the nontherapeutic use of antibiotics in animal feed. That’s unconscionable.
The Pultizer-prize-winning Kristof is no foe of farmers. He grew up on a farm and has tuned in to food. He called for a Secretary of Food rather than a Secretary of Agriculture and followed-up after Vilsack’s appointment suggesting a Deputy Secretary of Food.
Still, over at ScienceBlogs Mike the Mad Biologist says there’s better evidence:
The problem I have with Kristof’s column is that MRSA ST398 isn’t a hypothetical. The reason the spread of MRSA ST398 into the healthcare system scares the crap out of me isn’t that it might happen: it’s already happened. We already have documented evidence from the Netherlands, where ST398 has started to show up in the healthcare system in agricultural regions of the country. And in Sweden, ST398 is present in the community.
These are countries with reasonably good antibiotic use policies, so I’m not exactly optimistic. I’m glad Kristof raised the issue, but the reflexive conservative denialists will attack the column, when he could have provided much stronger evidence.
