In looking at health-care reform, Congress and the Obama administration are missing a key remedy that could help keep Americans healthy, prevent disease and hold down costs. We urgently need to reduce the development of antibiotic-resistant bacteria that cause new and hard-to-treat diseases, and we can start with food animal production.

For years, the federal government has warned doctors and other health-care providers to administer antibiotics to only those patients with bacteria-related illnesses.

Yet regulations still allow large-scale livestock feeding operations _ industrial farms _ to use antibiotics in ways never recommended for humans. In fact, the Union of Concerned Scientists estimates that up to 70 percent of all antibiotics sold in this country are given to food animals, most of it not to treat or prevent disease but to make the animals gain weight faster and to compensate for the crowded conditions often found in such enormous facilities.

This so-called “non-therapeutic use” involves employing antibiotics that are important for treating diseases and, administering them at sub-therapeutic levels for growth promotion in animals with no sign of illness. Unfortunately, this practice can create perfect conditions for bacteria to become resistant not only to one antibiotic, but to entire classes of the medicines.

When bacteria easily killed by the drugs die, they leave behind only surviving germs that can fight off the antibiotic.

Spreading from the animals, these bacteria can move to people not only through direct contact with the livestock or from being around someone who works on an industrial farm, but also just by handling or consuming meat contaminated with the drug resistant germs. Antibiotic-resistant bacteria in meat ultimately may end up in kitchens, where they contaminate countertops and hands.

As a result, drug-resistant strains of E. coli and salmonella can migrate from the farm to the human community, spreading from person to person.

This past summer saw several instances of resistant bacteria entering the food supply through tainted meat. For example, in August, a California meat plant recalled more than 800,000 pounds of its ground beef because of the outbreak of an antibiotic-resistant salmonella strain linked to the meat. But the summer also saw the U.S. Food and Drug Administration publicly acknowledge the human health risks posed by industrial farms, saying that the livestock industry should stop the non-therapeutic use of antibiotics because the practice is causing drug-resistant germs to develop.

The American Medical Association, World Health Organization, American Association of Pediatricians and many other health organizations also have warned about the link between the rise of antibiotic-resistant bacteria and industrial farms’ inappropriate use of antibiotics.

The direct financial costs of antibiotic-resistant bacteria are as bad as the suffering caused by this problem.

A recent study put the costs of resistance in U.S. hospitals at greater than $20 billion.

Multiple doses of new, powerful and pricey medicines often are needed to kill such germs _ and some patients require lengthy hospital stays, or at least miss days at work or school.

These drug resistant strains can cause serious symptoms, including diarrhea, blood-borne infection, abdominal cramps and, in severe cases, organ damage and even death.

Furthermore, with few new antibiotics in the development pipeline from the drug companies, ending the practice of non-therapeutic use on industrial farms could prove critical to buying time for the medicines we already have. Indeed, anything that undermines the effectiveness of current antibiotics only contributes to the health care costs of resistant infections.

Prevention really is the best medicine, especially in this case.

It makes much more sense to reduce the chances that new antibiotic-resistant germs will emerge than to let industrial farms continue a practice that endangers public health. The European Union has banned this practice. We should too.

Legislation pending in Congress would address the issue, by amending the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act to end the most worrisome industrial farm practices that give rise to antibiotic-resistant bacteria. Called the Preservation of Antibiotics for Medical Treatment Act, it would withdraw the use of seven classes of antibiotics vitally important to human health from use on industrial farms unless animals are actually sick.

Passing this measure would write at least one good prescription for improving our system of health care.

• Stuart B. Levy