Don’t want antibiotics sprayed on your citrus? Sorry – it’s about to expand, big-time by Erin Elizabeth for Health Nut News
The current administration has given the go-ahead for agricultural operations to spray streptomycin and oxytetracycline, antibiotics often used on people, on nearly a half-million acres of Florida citrus. And many scientists are warning this could increase the problem of antibiotic resistance in people and the environment. (The European Union and Brazil have banned the use of oxytetracycline and streptomycin for use as a pesticide on agricultural plants.)
“Agricultural operations plan to use the antibiotic sprays to combat the widespread disease called citrus greening, which has devastated the citrus industry. The antibiotics won’t cure the disease, and will have to be sprayed repeatedly over years just to keep the trees alive and producing fruit until they succumb to citrus greening.
Scientists at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency expressed concern, but ultimately ruled that the economic benefits outweigh the agency’s concerns about antibiotic resistance and potential harm to the environment, people, and wildlife. The amount of antibiotic exposure to people who eat fruit or juices is far less than what people are exposed to when prescribed antibiotics by their doctor, the U.S. Department of Agriculture reports.”1
However, allowing this much “antibiotic residue in Florida soils, runoff, and air is unprecedented”1 and it’s not known just how much of the antibiotics will end up in the fruit because it’s never been sprayed on this scale before. This is terrifying.
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