The issue is of concern because healthy farm animals are routinely fed antibiotics to promote growth and prevent infections.
To make matters worse, "healthy" farm animals are routinely fed so many antibiotics that E. coli, salmonella and other pathogens are developing resistance to commonly prescribed drugs.
While the F.D.A. has — for the last 35 years — admitted the dangers of administering antibiotics to healthy farm animals, it has so far declined to act.
A federal court ruled last week that the F.D.A. must finally decide whether the routine practice of feeding antibiotics to healthy farm animals poses a serious danger to human health.
"New Prescription Requirement Will Cut Use of Antibiotics in Livestock, F.D.A. Says" (news article, April 12) implies that the Food and Drug Administration has imposed new enforceable rules on the livestock industry that will curb rampant overuse of antibiotics on healthy farm animals.
For five years, a movement has been growing to link farmers directly with school cafeterias, said Robert Gottlieb, director of the Urban and Environmental Policy Institute at Occidental College in Los Angeles, an organizer of the first national conference on "Farm to Cafeteria: Healthy, Farms, Healthy Students" this week in Seattle.
Ms. Dupree, 73, said that in her childhood fried food was a once-a-week treat, that rich desserts were served even less often, and that vegetables and grains like rice and grits made up most of what was a healthy, farm-based diet.
It'll be more shocking if the agency, which has a long, rich history of inaction when it comes to animal antibiotics, decides to ban the practice of routinely feeding antibiotics to healthy farm animals, a decision that it's being forced to make.
