Coinciding with the new “Meat Without Drugs” campaign announced this week, tech start up Real Time Farms launched a crowd-sourced map to help consumers locate meat from animals raised without antibiotics.
The FixAntibiotics Food Finder allows shoppers to look up retail locations, farmers markets, farms, and restaurants sourcing antibiotic-free meat using their zipcode or by zooming into a geographic area.
Real Time Farms also asks users to add to the database if they know of another location that is not listed on the map.
“This campaign, as with so many things, comes down to people voting with their wallets because government is seen as moving too slowly,” said Real Time Farms, in a blog post on Thursday.
As Food Safety News Reported this week, public health advocates have been frustrated by what they believe is too slow a response to an urgent public health threat. Around 80 percent of all antibiotics sold in the United States each year are given to food animals to boost growth as well as treat and prevent disease and scientists have long known that all antibiotic use, whether in medicine or agriculture, fuels antibiotic resistance, which can make diseases harder to treat.
In April, FDA finalized a guidance on the judicious use of antibiotics in food animals and released a new plan to help curb the drugs used for growth promotion. The agency is asking veterinary drug companies to voluntarily change their drug labels on medically-important antibiotics so that farmers will only be allowed to use the drugs to prevent, control, or treat diseases under the supervision of a veterinarian — and to boost growth or improve feed efficiency.
