Mr. Speaker, last month the New England Journal of Medicine published a study. It concludes that the widespread practice of feeding animals with antibiotics to accelerate growth for profit poses a major health risk to humans.
According to the journal, retail meat is frequently infected with drug resistant bacteria resulting from the overuse of antibiotics for the purpose of stimulating growth. In response to the study the Canadian Food Inspection Agency suggests simply that Canadians thoroughly wash and cook meat. That is hardly an adequate response.
The health threat posed by the overuse of antibiotics would be reduced by limiting the use of antibiotics in animal feed only to cases when there is a need to fight a disease. I therefore urge the ministers of health and agriculture to deal with the overuse of antibiotics in animal feed and issue regulations which would protect public health.