Antibiotics

Fact: The less expensive meat sold in supermarkets is from animals raised in factory farms and routinely fed antibiotics.

The F.D.A. has no money to spare, but the corporations that control the food industry have all they need, along with the political power it buys. That’s why we can say this without equivocation: public health, the quality of our food, and animal welfare  are all sacrificed to the profits that can be made by raising animals in factories.  Plying “healthy” farm animals (with prophylactic  antibiotics) ... is as much a part of the American food system as childhood obesity and commodity corn. Animals move from farm to refrigerator case in record time; banning prophylactic drugs would slow this process down, and with it the meat industry’s rate of profit. Lawmakers beholden to corporate money are not about to let that happen, at least not without a fight.

Bacteria 1, F.D.A. 0  Mark Bittman, New York Times 12/27/11

Name names.  Which lawmakers are beholden to corporate money; which senators and congressman take money from the food industry? 

If Mr. Bittman is right about the human sickness and death caused by feeding antibiotics to livestock then my question becomes why are these lawmakers not held accountable for the misery they have abetted by blocking prohibitive regulations that would ban the prophylactic feeding of antibiotics to farm animals.  Am I being too civil or too critical to suggest that these elected officials should be given the opportunity or be subpoenaed to explain themselves in a court of law under oath?  I think not.