Not safe yet

Even vegetarians need to worry about antibiotics fed to factory farm animals. Corn, cabbage and green onions can absorb chlortetracycline from manure-enriched soil, according to a University of Minnesota study. Chlortetracydine is fed to hogs, cattle and poultry, not to treat disease but to stimulate growth.

Because antibiotics are poorly absorbed in the animals' intestines, up to 90 percent of the medicines are excreted and can end up in fertilizers that are then applied to vegetables. Ingested by humans, the chemicals in these vegetables may lead to "allergic or toxic reactions," researcher Kuldip Kumar, PhD, writes in the October 12, 2005 online edition of the Journal of Environmental Quality. The chemicals can also reduce "resistance to human pathogens ... resulting in illnesses that may be difficult to cure with presently available antibiotics."

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