“If there were credible evidence that the use of antibiotics in poultry was a hazard to humans, we would be the first to pull it,” says Charles Beard, vice president of the U.S. Poultry and Egg Association. Nonetheless, anti-agribusiness nannies are continuing to attack the meat and poultry industry for using antibiotics on their animals.
Why are the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) and the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) involved in this issue? Money. UCS received $110,000 in 1998 from The Joyce Foundation “to explore public health and environmental concerns related to use of antibiotics in large-scale beef, hog and chicken farms.” Meanwhile, CSPI got $35,000 in the last two years from the Helena Rubinstein Foundation Inc. for an “education initiative on dangers of antibiotic resistance.”
