Pork salmonella investigation highlights tensions between agriculture industry, farmers, and government investigators - Entrepreneur Generations

The surge in drug-resistant infections is a massive global health threat, and one of the biggest causes is farmers who give their animals antibiotics to keep them healthy before slaughter. "Overuse of the drugs has allowed germs to develop defenses to survive," Matt Richtel reports for The New York Times. "Drug-resistant infections in animals are spreading to people, jeopardizing the effectiveness of drugs that have provided quick cures for a vast range of ailments and helped lengthen human lives over much of the past century."

However, powerful ag industry interests have stymied public health officials' investigations into the issue. That's what happened after nearly 200 people got sick with pork salmonella in 2015. The antibiotic-resistant pork variant is the fastest-growing salmonella strain in the U.S. But federal investigators attempted to look into the outbreak, "what followed was an exhaustive detective hunt by public health authorities that was crippled by weak, loophole-ridden laws and regulations — and ultimately blocked by farm owners who would not let investigators onto their property and by their politically powerful allies in the pork industry," Richtel reports.

The pork industry routinely refused to allow investigators to access information on antibiotic use, according to Parthapratim Basu, a former chief veterinarian of the Agriculture Department's Food Safety and Inspection Service. "When it comes to power, no one dares to stand up to the pork industry," Basu told Richtel, "not even the U.S. government."

The Times story provides a reconstruction of the pork salmonella outbreak and its aftermath to illustrate how much power industry interests wield. They interviewed victims, investigators, industry executives and others involved, and reviewed government documents, medical records and emails of scientists and public health officials, Richtel reports.

At its heart, resistance from the pork industry and from hog farmers stems from their worries about being unfairly harmed if they were blamed for the salmonella outbreak. In reality, they argued, salmonella is endemic in livestock and the science is too complicated to blame hog farmers. "The tension mirrors a broader distrust in agriculture and other business about the intention of federal regulators and other government overseers," Richtel reports.

from The Rural Blog https://ift.tt/2KtLjTh Pork salmonella investigation highlights tensions between agriculture industry, farmers, and government investigators - Entrepreneur Generations

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