There’s a commercial on television recently that claims raising chickens without antibiotics is just a scam to charge more money. After all, it says, federal rules don’t permit selling chickens with any antibiotic residue.

Of course, that’s not the problem. Antibiotics are used in farming primarily as a way of stimulating rapid growth, and this overuse promotes the development of antibiotic-resistant bacteria. Routine use of antibiotics for that purpose should never have been allowed to start with, and until it’s prohibited we can at least try to avoid buying from operations that still use this irresponsible practice.

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