RTFA. It's a tax for use of antibiotics on livestock, not humans.

ronaldx · on Jan 14, 2014

RTA yourself (and then I'd appreciate an apology).

The article is proposing that the tax be applied to every use: "But why limit it to farms?".

ericcumbee · on Jan 14, 2014

Which the cost will be passed along to the consumer.

potatolicious · on Jan 14, 2014

And rightly so. There's no good reason why we should have cheap meat if the cost is hugely increasing our susceptibility to global pandemic.

OP was talking about taxing human-use antibiotics - i.e., we shouldn't do things that will increase the price of drugs that people literally need to avoid dying.

ronaldx · on Jan 14, 2014

I'm sorry that you've been downvoted - because you are right.

This is a tax on poor people that won't affect the majority of readers... it increases the minimum cost of producing meat.

If we can't figure out high-production meat farming then eventually we're saying that meat should be something only for the wealthy.

dllthomas · on Jan 15, 2014

If it's a choice between meat being something only for the wealthy and a prevalence of untreatable bacteriological infections, I'm going to go with the former.

rwallace · on Jan 15, 2014

Maybe the wealthy should stop eating meat too. Is it okay to torture animals for pleasure? If it is, then we should repeal the laws we currently have against it. But if it's wrong - as most people would say it is - then maybe we should stop behaving as though it becomes okay when it's done out of sight.