Nearly half the volume of antibiotics produced in the U. S. each year—about 15,000,000 pounds, worth almost $250,000,000—is fed to animals. Penicillin, tetracycline, and other such medications are routinely mixed into the feed of the majority of livestock in this country . . . not mainly to stave off disease but, instead, in efforts to increase growth rates.
According to an Office of Technology Assessment report 99% of all poultry, 70% of beef cattle and veal, and 90% of swine receive routine subtherapeutic doses of antibiotics. It's now nearly impossible to find livestock that don't have significant populations of resistant bacteria, whether or not they've actually been fed antibiotics. The resistant strains quickly pass from one animal to another in confinement and have even been reported to mysteriously travel several hundred yards between pens
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