Use of 8m pounds of antibiotics and antifungals a year leads to superbugs and damages human health, lawsuit claims

Use of 8m pounds of antibiotics and antifungals a year leads to superbugs and damages human health, lawsuit claims

A new legal petition filed by a dozen public health and farm worker groups demands the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) stop allowing farms to spray antibiotics on food crops in the US because they are probably causing superbugs to flourish and sickening farm workers.

The agricultural industry sprays about 8m pounds of antibiotic and antifungal pesticides on US food crops annually, many of which are banned in other countries.

The overuse of antibiotics, which are essential to treating human disease, as pesticides on fruits and vegetables threatens public health because it can lead to superbug bacteria that are antibiotic-resistant. Similarly, overuse of antifungal pesticides can lead to fungal infections that are less treatable with medical currently available drugs, the groups say.

    • Jax@sh.itjust.works
      41·
      12 hours ago

      Do you know that the bananas you probably eat (maybe not, idk you) are at risk of going functionally extinct because of a type of fungus? A similar thing happened with Gros Michel bananas, which are not actually extinct but commercially unviable due to said fungus.

      Many plants require multitudes of antibiotics, pest control poisons and other measures simply to be able to ship and supply grocery stores with enough ‘goods’ to fill shelves. Regardless of whether or not the majority of those ‘goods’ end up being thrown away. You are right in thinking that it is wrong — because it is.

      Lentils, for example, do very poorly when competing with weeds. This is why herbicides are required very early on to grow lentils, otherwise they simply won’t compete as well. It doesn’t really matter if it’s organic or not — you are still required to use those pesticides.

      One would think ‘well then maybe we shouldn’t grow as many lentils’ — and you’d be right! Now, say that to all the vegans that are more or less required to eat lentils due to their protein and vitamin content. Suddenly things aren’t nearly as clean cut as ‘simply don’t do the thing’.

    • The_v@lemmy.world
      1·
      22 hours ago

      Bacterial disease on crops are very hard to control. Traditionally there is not much l chemistry that can control them effectively. This is especially true on tree fruit where bacterial disease can cause a lot of damage. Bacterial diseases on annual crops from seed are usually controlled by phytosanitary procedures (like acid seed extraction in tomatoes).

      So if you got an apple or an orange grown in the U.S. it likely had some antibiotic sprayed on it.

      https://pnwhandbooks.org/node/30596/print

      The traditional control has been copper. Copper unfortunately sticks around permanently and builds up to some pretty toxic levels.

      https://pse.agriculturejournals.cz/pdfs/pse/2024/07/02.pdf

      If you eat organic, it’s had a shit ton of copper sprayed on it.