The BBC reports on a superbug which has killed at least 60 people in the last four years may have come from milk and meat produced on British farms. “A virulent form of E.coli, which is resistant to usual antibiotics, has been found on 11 cattle farms,” states the BBC.
The Soil Association makes the case that increasing antibiotic use in animals could be spreading the virus and wants the government to ban the advertising of antibiotics to farmers. Antibiotics are, of course, fed, including in feed, to factory farmed animals to counter their perpetually stressed state. Apparently, the British government is investigating the situation.
The Grumpy Vegan can’t help but wonder what the British government would be doing if it thought animal activists were behind the deaths of these 60 people? Anyway, Britain could be on the cusp of one more in a series of food scares that caused death and serious illness. There was the soft cheese scare, the raw egg scare, the foot and mouth disease, and mad cow disease.
The Grumpy Vegan has always felt that the health and economic arguments against meat and dairy consumption will contribute more to the promotion of vegetarianism and veganism than the ethical case will. Truly a sad thought that self-interest will be of more of a motivation than a compassionate, all-embracing mind. Perhaps this is why institutionalized religion and blind faith in political ideology results in the justification of killing people and animals. We will get what we deserve until we can have a universal vision of the interbeing of all.
