Go veggie and help to prevent more disease (From Northwich Guardian)

Go veggie and help to prevent more disease

5:30pm Wednesday 15th June 2011 in Your Letters

IT comes as no surprise that a new strain of MRSA has been found in cows’ milk.

When animals are raised in close proximity to one another – often in highly-stressful, filthy, factory farm conditions – it would be naïve to imagine that they will not suffer high levels of infectious diseases that place people and animals at risk.

In order to keep them alive long enough to reach slaughter weight, farmed animals are fed antibiotics.The industry’s over use of these drugs has allowed pathogens to mutate into more dangerous forms and become drug resistant.

This has led the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation to warn that global meat production poses a serious threat to human health.

The recent European E.coli outbreak is also thought to have originated in farmed animals. Although scientists have yet to pinpoint the precise source, they believe that salad vegetables were infected by bacteria in animal manure that was used to fertilise the crops.

The best way to prevent future food-borne disease outbreaks and an increase in drug-resistant superbug strains is to stop farming animals and switch to a meat-free diet.

Visit animalaid.org.uk or call 01732 364546 to order a free Guide to Going Veggie.

KELLY SLADE Animal Aid