Whether the use of antibiotics in animal production is responsible, in whole or in part, for the increased prevalence of antibiotic-resistant strains of pathogens in food is definitely a hard and controversial topic.
Generally, hard and controversial topics get put aside, and antibiotic resistance has been pushed aside for 40 years. However, in today’s social-media age, animal agriculture needs to recognize the issue is unlikely to go away and needs to be addressed proactively. We need to address it before there is an outbreak with multiple deaths attributed to meat or poultry with an antibiotic-resistant pathogen strain. Having lived through E. coli O157 in the 1990s, I have no desire to repeat the experience.