Letter: Antibiotics are being used recklessly

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To the editor,

A recent report by the Review on Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR) exposed an alarming prediction that by 2050, antibiotic-resistant infections will kill 10 million people each year worldwide — on average that would be one death every 3 seconds.

As a nutritionist, my mother would harbor me from doctors that carelessly over-prescribed antibiotics. However, millions of mothers around the world don’t know that the biggest threat to their children’s health today is not only from the overuse of antibiotics in the medical field but also the food industry.

Many factory farms recklessly use antibiotics by giving a daily dose of these medicines to animals even when they are not sick. If my mother would know this today, she would definitely call on big restaurants like Kentucky Fried Chicken to stop using meat that are raised on routine antibiotics, so children in this country can enjoy their meals and our medicines stay effective as well.

Xiangdi Emily Zhang

Naugatuck