Not only is excessive meat eating strongly related to death from heart disease and diabetes, but the indiscriminate use of antibiotics in animal feed is promoting the spread of highly resistant bacteria such as salmonella which can cause typhoid fever and symptoms of arthritis as well as food poisoning.

      At the Center for Disease Control in Atlanta, it is estimated that 20 to 25 percent of food poisoning cases in this country are caused by bacteria insensitive to one or more antibiotics. These bacteria are also quite prevelant in food crops. A typical salad contains 100 million bacterial cells of the type Gram-negative, which include strains that can flourish in the intestine. 40 to 100 percent of these strains are insensitive to one antibiotic, and some are insensitive to as many as eight.

      An internal audit by the Agriculture Department's Inspector General, found that Federal control of existing pesticides and other chemicals in the nation's meat and poultry are largely ineffective.
      The report, which was completed in November 1988, but not widely distributed in the department concluded that: "Even when animals were presented to inspectors, administrative controls and current policies did not insure timely and effective response when pesticide residue and other contaminants were suspected or found in meant and poultry products. As a result, many adulterated products were allowed to enter commerce...the inspection agency, the Food Safety and Inspection Service, has little authority to prevent pesticide residues from showing up in meat and poultry...it was unable to successfully investigate pesticide violations in 79 percent of the cases."
      A violation was defined as an illegal level of chemical residue found in a sample of meat or poultry.

      Some of the illegal animal drugs that are being smuggled into the country and making their way into the food chain:
      * Dimetridazole and Ipronidazole: Powerful antibiotics that are also potent carcinogens. The drugs are mixed into feed or added to water. The FDA banned dimetridazole in 1987 and ipronidazole was to be removed from the market in 1989.
      * Chloramphenicol: highly toxic antibiotic used to treat bacterial diseases in cattle and swine. Chloramphenicol is toxic even at trace levels, and has been linked to aplastic anemia, "grey syndrome" in premature and newborn infants, and neurotoxic disorders. The drug's only approved use is in treating dogs.
      * Carbadox: an antimicrobial applied to feed to promote growth in pigs. carbadox causes genetic mutations and tumors in lab animals.
      * Rifampin: an antibiotic that has never been approved for use of any kind in a food-producing animal.
      * Nitrofurazone: an antimicrobial applied to feed in hogs and poultry (never approved for cattle). The FDA believes it is a powerful carcinogen.

      From February to March, 1989, Townsend Poultry Products in Batesville, Ark., one of the natio's largest poultry producers, was forced to destroy over 400,000 chickens because they were contaminated with heptachlor, a cancer-causing pesticide that was banned 12 years ago.
      Heptachlor accumulates in animal and milk fats, and is especially dangerous for nursing mothers, infants and children.

      Sulfamethazine, a widely-used used to speed growth and prevent respiratory diseases in animals, clearly causes cancerous tumors of the thyroid glands in rats and mice. The FDA, in six months (from 11/05/89), will propose to withdraw the drug from the market (!).

      The increasing public demand for chicken coupled with a decimated federal poultry inspection program, is dramatically increasing the risk of salmonella poisoning nationwide.
      The National Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta estimated that between 400,000 and 4 million people contracted salmonella in 1989. The Institute for Southern Studies, a non-profit research group for economic and social conditions in the South, put the number at 2.5 million, including hospitilizations and 9,000 deaths. Reported cases of salmonella have increased from approx. 3 cases per 100,000 people in 1955 to about 22 cases per 100,000 people in 1988.
      According to the USDA, about 37 percent of the 40 million chickens inspected by the dept. every week are infected with salmonella or other bacteria.
      A study by former USDA microbiologist Gerald Kuester showed that 76 percent of all chickens leaving a Puerto Rican processing facility---one of the industry's newest and most modern---were contaminated with salmonella.
      Kuester left the USDA in 1988 when it refused to acknowledge the study.

      Growth hormone residues in beef and porcine somatotropin in pigs may also impact negatively on human physiology.

      Dairy products are particularly suscefptible to listeria contamination. Catherine Donnelly, a University of Vermont scientist, said listeria monocytogenes was blamed for 105 stillbirths and deaths in California during the summer of '85 after people consumed a Mexican-style cheese containing listeria. There are an estimated 500 to 1,000 cases of listeriosis per year. In 1983, the microbe was linked to 14 deaths from contaminated milk in Massachusettes. In early June, 1986, Kraft Inc. recalled 25,000 cases of Polar Bars ice cream after hundreds of people complained of illness. In 15 people the flu-like symptoms of fever and vomiting were definitely linked to the ice cream.
      The most severe complication is damage to fetuses. Pregnant women who contract listeriosis may have stillborn, severely ill or retarded babies.
      Immune-compromised people are particularly at risk. 100 Listeria cells, which can easily fit in the period at the end of this sentence, can be fatal for such people. The above factors bring into question the wisdom of introducing fast-food restaurants into hospitals, most noticeably: Texas Children's Hosp. and the Texas Heart Institute in Houston, Children's Hosp. of Philadelphia, Kosair Children's Hosp. in Louisville, Ky., St. Joseph's Hospital and Medical Center in Pheonix, AZ, and the Christian Northeast Hospital in St. Louis, MO.

      Prudence suggests the consumption of antibiotic and hormone-free meat.