There’s a global campaign to force meat producers to rein in their use of antibiotics on pigs, chickens and cattle. European countries, especially Denmark and the Netherlands, have taken the lead. The U.S. is moving, haltingly, toward similar restrictions. Now the concerns about rampant antibiotic use appear to have reached China, where meat production and antibiotic use have been growing fast.

Half of all the pigs in the world live in China — a consequence of the country’s swelling appetite for pork. And like pork producers in many other countries, Chinese farmers have turned to antibiotics and other feed additives to control disease in their herds and also to make the animals grow faster.