Enrique Gili is a freelance writer covering Lifestyles of Health and Sustainability (The unintended consequences of factory farming are just beginning to be fully understood. Fattening pigs for market in cramped pens isn't good for the animal and ultimately not for us as consumers or the environment. According to new research from the University of Illinois the routine use of antibiotics in swine production is leaking from waste lagoons into groundwater,
Researchers report that some genes found in hog waste lagoons are transferred, "like batons," from one bacterial species to another. This migration across species and into new environments sometimes dilutes, and sometimes amplifies, genes conferring antibiotic resistance. (ENS)
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