So many half-truths masquerading as reality in this typical fear-mongering piece.
(Few farmers have Mr. Lewis’s resources.)
Yeah, that’s called having a squeeze chute and farmers with cattle all have at least one. Guess what, they get used on an animal many times for many treatments hence they are vital pieces of equipment.
Of course, the usual fearmongering about antibiotics moving through the meat to humans gets tossed in. Standard garbage. Guess what, there are vets and meat inspectors in the processing chain whose job is to make sure slaughtered beef is safe for consumption. This includes looking for antibiotic residue. If an animal is given antibiotics, the animal cannot be slaughtered for ‘x’ amount of days in order for them to clear their system. Oh, but farmers are all crooked, the meat companies are all crooked, the vets are all crooked, and everyone is in on the racket to pass on tainted meat. Yeah, pass me another tinfoil hat.
Antibiotic resistance is a real concern hence probably a good decision on the part of the FDA to ban the use of preventative antibiotics. BTW, they were used in small doses and the feed wasn’t drenched with them contrary to the insinuation otherwise. Guess what, antibiotics are expensive and input costs to raise beef are high enough as it is. They are amazing and if we have a sick animal instead of it dying from something as simple as footrot, we can cure it. But when each shot can cost $50 then it’s not long before your profit margin on an animal can disappear.
Oh, this is the best, why exactly was Mr. Lewis’s trouble’s with his herd somehow tied with overuse of antibiotics? Here’s what anaplasmosis in cattle is: http://www.thecattlesite.com/diseaseinfo/255/anaplasmosis/
Anaplasmosis is a vector-borne, infectious blood disease in cattle caused by the rickesttsial parasites Anaplasma marginale and Anaplasma centrale. It is also known as yellow-bag or yellow-fever.
This parasite infects the red blood cells and causes severe anemia. It is most usually spread by ticks.
Guess what, you know how you save your animals that have Anaplasmosis? Antibiotics!
Hey, sucks for Lewis (somehow a small-time organic cattle farmer who can afford $65000 of bulls at a shot plus cull 100 animals) to lose animals like that. Guess what, that’s farming and it’s easy to suffer disasters. Maybe instead of looking for farmer/big pharma conspiracies he should have spent more time in the pasture instead of Wall Street.
This is just another drive by smear piece against the people who feed us all using the usual tactics of half-truths, fear-mongering, and insinuations.
