Read the following passage and answer the item that follows. Your answer to this item should be based on the passage only.

Several large poultry producers have continued using antibiotics as routine growth promoters even after regulators in some countries banned the practice, arguing that withdrawal would raise costs and slow growth rates. Public-health researchers counter that routine low-dose antibiotic use in healthy animals is exactly the practice most likely to breed drug-resistant bacteria, since resistant strains face little competition from susceptible ones and can spread to humans through the food chain or direct contact with livestock.

Which one of the following statements best reflects the critical message conveyed by the passage given above?