Witchy Woman

"The mystery started the day farmer Russ Kremer got between a jealous boar and a sow in heat.

The boar gored Kremer in the knee with a razor-sharp tusk. The burly pig farmer shrugged it off, figuring: "You pour the blood out of your boot and go on."

But Kremer's red-hot leg ballooned to double its size. A strep infection spread, threatening his life and baffling doctors. Two months of multiple antibiotics did virtually nothing.

The answer was flowing in the veins of the boar. The animal had been fed low doses of penicillin, spawning a strain of strep that was resistant to other antibiotics. That drug-resistant germ passed to Kremer.

Like Kremer, more and more Americans - many of them living far from barns and pastures - are at risk from the widespread practice of feeding livestock antibiotics. These animals grow faster, but they can also develop drug-resistant infections that are passed on to people. The issue is now gaining attention because of interest from a new White House administration and a flurry of new research tying antibiotic use in animals to drug resistance in people."

Now before anyone goes off the deep end and says, "But it's for the health of the animal." No, it is not. Antibiotics are being fed to them en masse, which is the problem. There is a reason why you shouldn't take antibiotics without a doctor's supervision. Animals shouldn't either.

Sir, you are a vet. Not a doctor, and certainly not a biologist. Drug resistant strains of various diseases are becoming more of a problem than ever before. That's what the science is saying.

"Back in Missouri, farmer Kremer finally found an antibiotic that worked on his leg. After being released from the hospital, Kremer tested his pigs. The results showed they were resistant to all the same drugs he was.

Kremer tossed his hypodermic needles, sacked his buckets of antibiotic-laced feed, slaughtered his herd and started anew.

"I was wearing a syringe, like a holster, like a gun, because my pigs were all sick," he recalled. "I was really getting so sick and aggravated at what I was doing. I said, 'This isn't working.'""

Most companies/producers are betting that people don't know/won't care what goes into their food as long as it's cheap, especially in this economy. But when you weigh the cost of organic food against the cost of cancer, which is cheaper?