The Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future (CLF) recognizes that one important way to affect change in the food system is to find ways to improve consumer purchasing and eating behaviors. The Meatless Monday campaign, which CLF endorsed seven years ago, encourages Americans to take control of their health by refraining from eating meat [...]

Today’s New York Times carries an editorial, “Farms and Antibiotics,” in support of the Preservation of Antibiotics for Medical Treatment Act, calling for withdrawal of FDA approval of nontherapeutic use of antimicrobial drugs critical to human medicine. Reprinted below is a letter submitted to the Times by the Center for a Livable Future:
We applaud the [...]

I accompanied Dr. Roni Neff to southern Pennsylvania last week and this week to attend a school board and committee meeting in order to share information about public health threats associated with large-scale food animal production facilities. Roni was invited by the Peach Bottom Concerned Citizens Group to present this information because of concern [...]

In recent weeks some 280 South African corn farmers went to harvest their corn and discovered that although the exterior of the plants looked lush the interior was bare. An article by the Digital Journal reports that millions of dollars were lost to farmers when their three varieties of Monsanto brand corn seeds failed to [...]

The Washington Post’s Jane Black wrote a great Q & A piece in today’s paper with Farmer-Writer-Academic Wendell Berry; Wes Jackson, president of the Land Institute,; and Fred Kirschenmann, Leopold Center fellow and president of the Stone Barns Center. The three had traveled to DC to promote an ambitious proposal to legislators for a new [...]

On Thursday evening, my colleague, Jillian Fry and I went up to rural southern Pennsylvania with the intent of speaking to the school board of the South Eastern School District. We had been invited to speak by members of Peach Bottom Concerned Citizens to provide a summary of potential environmental hazards to schoolchildren and [...]

While big box stores may be an easy target for critics who bash their significant environmental impacts, one national bohemoth is taking steps to inform its customers just how environmentally-friendly each product is.  Yesterday, Wal-mart unveiled a plan for a “sustainability index” label to academic, industry and government representatives  at its Arkansas headquarters.

Slate’s thorough article [...]

In the wake of recent Congressional hearings calling for a halt to the use of antibiotics in farm animal production, Minneapolis-based Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy has (IATP) just released a report saying the use of antibiotics in ethanol production is unnecessary.
“The ethanol industry should voluntarily stop the unnecessary use of antibiotics in the [...]

Chalk one up for public health advocates fighting to keep antibiotics an effective treatment for fighting disease in people after the FDA’s principal deputy commissioner of food and drugs, Dr. Joshua Sharfstein, revealed that the Obama Administration, “supports ending the use of antibiotics for growth and feed efficiency” in food animals. Dr. Sharfstein made the [...]

Center for a Livable Future Statement on
The Preservation of Antibiotics for Medical Treatment Act (PAMTA).

Washington, D.C. (July 15, 2009) - The Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future (CLF) Director Robert Lawrence, MD, issued the following statement today regarding recent Congressional action on the issue of antibiotic resistance.

“On Monday, the U.S. House [...]