Right now, we can fight off a wide range of bacterial infections using antibiotics. But those antibiotics are becoming increasingly ineffective, and antibiotic use on factory farms is partially to blame. In this episode, Lance Price and Cindy Liu, two public health researchers, explain that we give animals a steady dose of antibiotics in their feed, hoping to stave off disease in cramped, unsanitary conditions. But as a result, the bacteria in these animals develop resistance to antibiotics. But they have some suggestions for how we could make our antibiotics last.

Further listening and reading:

Sigal Samuel has written in depth about the antibiotic risks posed by our factory farms.

Liu and Price’s full study is worth a read, as is this Wired writeup of its findings.

The episode mentions some of the work that Canada and Denmark have done to combat this resistance problem.

It also digs into the use of the antibiotic Colistin in Chinese farms, and the subsequent spread of resistance.

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Featuring: Byrd Pinkerton (@byrdala), podcast producer, Vox Martha Nelson (@swientist), epidemiologist, National Institutes of Health Juergen Richt (@juergenricht), professor of veterinary medicine, Kansas State University

Host: Sigal Samuel (@SigalSamuel), staff writer, Vox More to explore: Follow all of Future Perfect’s reporting on the Future of Meat. Subscribe to Vox’s Future Perfect newsletter, which breaks down big, complicated problems the world faces and the most efficient ways to solve them. Follow Us: Vox.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices