These Drugs Fatten Up Cattle and Make It Painful to Walk

[DainBramaged]

Beta-agonists are drugs that were originally developed to help people with asthma and are now given to cattle to make them grow faster in a shorter period of time to “produce more beef with fewer cattle.” A recent video of “lame” cattle fed such drugs raises concerns about the safety of beta-agonists for animals and, also, for humans who eat beef from them.

Beef from cattle fed drugs such as Merck’s Zilmax and Optaflexx from Eli Lilly Co’s Elanco Animal Health can be labeled as hormone-free and antibiotic-free because, under U.S. Department of Agriculture guidelines, beta-agonists are not growth hormones or antibiotics. Such meat can also be labeled “natural,” which seems rather inaccurate, given that animals fed beta-agonists in the weeks before they are slaughtered add thirty pounds to their body weight; the drugs also reduce the fat content of the beef.

In other words, beta-agonists are made to order for companies like Tyson and Cargill who produced more than 26 billion pounds of meat last year from 91 million cattle. In contrast, 111 million head of cattle produced 21 billion pounds of beef back in 1952.

Cattle Seen Walking as if On Hot Metal

Dr. Lily Edwards-Callaway, the head of animal welfare at JBS USA, showed the video on August 7 at the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association. The cattle could be seen “struggling to walk and displaying other signs of distress” and seeming to “step gingerly, as if on hot metal,” says Reuters.

Edwards-Callaway noted that “heat, transportation and animal health” could have played a part in the cattle appearing to be lame.



Read more: http://www.care2.com/causes/growth-drugs-make-cattle-fat-and-also-lame-and-disabled.html#ixzz2cRtvtIeg

[ag_dude]

1. It doesn't fatten them.

Quite the opposite actually.

The fat content decreases while muscle increases which is a part of meat quality issues.

[DainBramaged]

2. dO THEY GAIN WEIGHT? O_o

[ag_dude]

3. Yes.

It adds somewhere around 30-40 lbs, primarily premium cuts to the carcass.

The problems come from the fact that by cutting down on fat in favor of muscle, it can hurt carcass quality.

Tyson claims there were lameness issues which I've seen when it was overfed.