Perdue Farms eliminates antibiotic use in chicken hatcheries

By David Pierson

Perdue Foods, the nation’s third-largest poultry producer, said it has removed all antibiotics from its chicken hatcheries to address growing concerns about bacterial resistance to the widely used drugs.

The Salisbury, Md.-based company said it invested in cleaner hatcheries that eliminate the need for antibiotics on eggs. The poultry industry often injects eggs with antibiotics after vaccinating them because small holes in the shell can expose the eggs to disease.

Perdue is the first major poultry producer to phase out antibiotics in hatcheries, according to the National Chicken Council.

Perdue said antibiotic use is now restricted to treating sick flocks and to control a common intestinal parasite. The company eliminated antibiotic use to promote growth in its birds in 2007. Perdue said 95% of its chickens are now free of so-called medically important antibiotics – antibiotics that have an equivalent in human medicine and therefore raise the risk of creating human resistance.  

Read more by clicking on the following:  http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-perdue-antibiotics-20140903-story.html?track=rss

Little Evidence That The ACA Affected Part-Time Employment

Bowen Garrett and Robert Kaestner

new evidence on the question using the latest available data
from the Current Population Survey (CPS).
We find no evidence that the ACA had already started increasing part-time work before 2014. We find a small
increase in part-time work in 2014 beyond what would be expected at this point in the economic recovery based
on prior experience since 2000. This increase in part-time work is fully attributable to an increase in involuntary
part-time work. The increase in involuntary part-time work, however, is not specific to the category of part-time work
defined by the ACA (i.e., less than 30 hours per week), but applies to part-time work more broadly (also between 30 and
34 hours per week). Moreover, transitions between full-time and part-time work in 2014 are in line with historic patterns.
These findings suggest that the increase in part-time work in 2014 is not ACA related, but more likely due to a slower than
normal recovery of full-time jobs following the Great Recession.

Read the entire 17 page report by clicking on the following:  http://www.rwjf.org/content/dam/farm/reports/reports/2014/rwjf415284