Bad diets

In ORDER to prevent the “catastrophic threat” of antibiotic resistance, the chief medical officer needs look no further than the dinner plate.

Factory-farmed animals are disease-ridden as a result of being crammed into filthy sheds, which are a breeding ground for new strains of dangerous bacteria and viruses. Pigs and other animals on factory farms are fed a steady diet of drugs to keep them alive in these unsanitary, stressful conditions, increasing the chance drug-resistant superbugs will develop.

Hans-Gerhard Wagner, a senior officer with the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation, called the intensive industrial farming of livestock an “opportunity for emerging disease”.

Just last month, researchers at Michigan State University in the US restated the fact that the overuse of antibiotics to treat infections in farm animals increases the likelihood that “superbugs” will cause harm to humans.

In addition to the fact that vegan diets are less likely to require the use of antibiotics in the first place, choosing to eat vegan also helps to decrease the danger of mutating bacteria.

Ben Williamson

People for the Ethical 
Treatment of Animals

All Saints Street

London