Livestock Feed Ban Preserves Drugs' Power

CHICAGO-- It9s no secret that livestock fed antibiotics breed drug-resistant bacteria that can cause dangerous infections in people. But a new study suggests that the process is reversible. Banning a drug called avoparcin from animal feed dramatically reduced the chances that potentially dangerous gut microbes in hospital patients would be resistant to an important, related drug, Belgian researchers reported last month at a meeting sponsored by the American Society for Microbiology.