The leaves are changing colors and the air is getting crisp. As we settle into fall, Americans take time to reflect on what they’re thankful for.
Like many folks, I’ve got plenty of gratitude for the most important meal I’ll eat this month. Sweet potatoes, stuffing, pecan pie… My mouth is already watering just thinking about it. But the real centerpiece is the turkey, which – thanks to Norman Rockwell – evokes feelings of homecoming, family, and love.
Yet when I look at the turkey on my family’s table this year, it will evoke a very different emotion: terror.
Unless your turkey came of age on an organic farm, there’s a good chance it was pumped full of antibiotics. The overuse – and misuse – of these life-saving drugs on factory-farmed animals is making them less effective for humans.
In fact, at least 70 percent of the medically important antibiotics sold in the United States are wholesaled for use on poultry, cattle, and hog farms.
Factory farming crams thousands to tens of thousands of animals into tiny confined spaces, which can lead to disease outbreaks that threaten the industry’s bottom line. As a precautionary measure, factory farmers add antibiotics to farm feed and apply them in huge volumes to animals that aren’t sick.
This steady diet of anti-bacterial drugs breeds antibiotic-resistant bacteria in the animals’ guts. Those bugs wind up in their excrement, which can filter into our food, air, and water – exposing humans.
The terrifying part is that these drug-resistant bacteria render our usual remedies ineffective. Infections that were once easily treatable can become deadly when our drugs stop working. And hospitals are reporting large increases in antibiotic-resistant infections.
In Maryland, where I work, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have found an increase in infections on the Eastern Shore, where most of our large chicken farms are located. Unsurprisingly, research also shows a much higher rate of antibiotic resistance in farmworkers, who are in close contact with these animals.
Other countries, including Denmark, have phased out antibiotic abuse for their livestock without jeopardizing productivity. Here at home, some states are following their lead.
California just passed landmark legislation curtailing the practice. States like Maryland and Oregon are considering measures that would go even further to protect public health.
More than once around this time of year, I’ve counted myself thankful for effective antibiotics. When I got a throat infection that left me bedridden a few years ago, I could rely on penicillin to help me recover. And when I suffered from a particularly nasty case of gastroenteritis last year, one round of antibiotics cured all my symptoms.
The next time I contract a bacterial infection, will I be so lucky? Will you?
We need to protect this sacred resource – and we can start by banning the use of unnecessary antibiotics in animal farming. Because no turkey should be terrifying.
Truthout Is Preparing to Meet Trump’s Agenda With Resistance at Every Turn
Dear Truthout Community,
If you feel rage, despondency, confusion and deep fear today, you are not alone. We’re feeling it too. We are heartsick. Facing down Trump’s fascist agenda, we are desperately worried about the most vulnerable people among us, including our loved ones and everyone in the Truthout community, and our minds are racing a million miles a minute to try to map out all that needs to be done.
We must give ourselves space to grieve and feel our fear, feel our rage, and keep in the forefront of our mind the stark truth that millions of real human lives are on the line. And simultaneously, we’ve got to get to work, take stock of our resources, and prepare to throw ourselves full force into the movement.
Journalism is a linchpin of that movement. Even as we are reeling, we’re summoning up all the energy we can to face down what’s coming, because we know that one of the sharpest weapons against fascism is publishing the truth.
There are many terrifying planks to the Trump agenda, and we plan to devote ourselves to reporting thoroughly on each one and, crucially, covering the movements resisting them. We also recognize that Trump is a dire threat to journalism itself, and that we must take this seriously from the outset.
Last week, the four of us sat down to have some hard but necessary conversations about Truthout under a Trump presidency. How would we defend our publication from an avalanche of far right lawsuits that seek to bankrupt us? How would we keep our reporters safe if they need to cover outbreaks of political violence, or if they are targeted by authorities? How will we urgently produce the practical analysis, tools and movement coverage that you need right now — breaking through our normal routines to meet a terrifying moment in ways that best serve you?
It will be a tough, scary four years to produce social justice-driven journalism. We need to deliver news, strategy, liberatory ideas, tools and movement-sparking solutions with a force that we never have had to before. And at the same time, we desperately need to protect our ability to do so.
We know this is such a painful moment and donations may understandably be the last thing on your mind. But we must ask for your support, which is needed in a new and urgent way.
We promise we will kick into an even higher gear to give you truthful news that cuts against the disinformation and vitriol and hate and violence. We promise to publish analyses that will serve the needs of the movements we all rely on to survive the next four years, and even build for the future. We promise to be responsive, to recognize you as members of our community with a vital stake and voice in this work.
Please dig deep if you can, but a donation of any amount will be a truly meaningful and tangible action in this cataclysmic historical moment.
We’re with you. Let’s do all we can to move forward together.
With love, rage, and solidarity,
Maya, Negin, Saima, and Ziggy