Ethanol's main by-product, which is sold as livestock feed, has raised potential food safety concerns (paper, areas)

[ladycat]

Investigators have found this popular by-product feed often contains antibiotics left over from making ethanol.

Ethanol producers use penicillin and virginiamycin to kill bacteria, which raises two potential concerns:

• These treatments might promote the growth of bacteria that are resistant to antibiotics.
• Antibiotics could find their way to humans through the food chain.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has taken a mostly hands-off approach to the use of antibiotics in the ethanol industry, according to an item last week on Minnesota Public Radio. “But amid increasing concerns over food safety in recent years, the agency is taking a closer look.”

http://minnesota.publicradio.org/display/web/2009/03/24/distrillersantibiotics

[fatchance2005]

Originally Posted by ladycat

Investigators have found this popular by-product feed often contains antibiotics left over from making ethanol.





Ethanol producers use penicillin and virginiamycin to kill bacteria, which raises two potential concerns:

• These treatments might promote the growth of bacteria that are resistant to antibiotics.
• Antibiotics could find their way to humans through the food chain.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has taken a mostly hands-off approach to the use of antibiotics in the ethanol industry, according to an item last week on Minnesota Public Radio. “But amid increasing concerns over food safety in recent years, the agency is taking a closer look.”

http://minnesota.publicradio.org/display/web/2009/03/24/distrillersantibiotics

The overuse of antibiotics in raising livestock is one of a number of things we're doing that may ultimately lead to the extinction of our species. Livestock producers have felt there are no alternatives but as always the agricultural colleges are doing excellent research and the early verdict seems to be they may not be as essential as once thought. The use of "distillers grain"-- the byproduct of fermenting corn to make whiskey and more recently, fuel-- for cattle feed is an ancient practice, but the encorporation of antibiotics into the process is more recent. The Distillers Grain Technology Council has followed issues related to this product for the last 50 years. They feel the FDA is ducking its responsibilities on the issue of antibiotics in livestock production. Overuse of antibiotics leads to resistant bacteria, which have already been identified in a number of areas of livestock production, including distiller's grain. Resistant bacterial are a large and growing health concern worldwide. Distillers grain is one point in the production cycle where alternatives clearly exist, like irradiation. The first published scientific paper on distillers grain was published in 1907.

http://ohioline.osu.edu/as-fact/pdf/distillers.pdf

About Us - Distillers Grains Technology Council (DGTC)

http://www.extension.org/pages/Distillers_Grains

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