"Antibiotics: Agribusiness’s Pound of Flesh"
When farm animals are fed antibiotics,
they can develop antibiotic-resistant bacteria in their guts,
and then the gut bacteria can become manure on meat,
which can spread to humans.
Even vegetarian humans, since drug resistant bacteria in animal feces
can also spread to people through crops or the environment.
The exhaust fans can blow MRSA superbugs straight out
into the surrounding area from pig operations, or poultry operations.
You can find MRSA floating around outside these sheds
containing thousands of turkeys or chickens.
This may explain why in Europe
human MRSA infection has been tied to just
living in a region with industrial pig production,
whether or not people have direct contact with livestock.
These findings may not just be limited to Europe though,
where their factory farms pale in comparison
to what we have here in the States.
But we didn’t now for sure, until now.
Proximity to swine manure application to crop fields
and livestock operations was each associated with MRSA
and skin and soft-tissue infections in people here in the U.S.
These findings contribute to the growing concern
about the potential public health impacts
of this high-density livestock production.
Achievements in modern medicine,
such as surgery and the treatment of preterm babies,
which we today take for granted,
would not be possible without access
to effective treatment for bacterial infections.
Within just a few years, we might be faced with dire setbacks,
unless real and unprecedented global coordinated actions
are immediately taken to protect these wonder drugs.
So the use of antibiotics just to promote
the growth of farm animals to slaughter weight
should be banned worldwide as happened in the EU.
Europe stopped feeding pigs and chickens tetracycline and penicillin
to promote growth about 40 years ago,
something we continue to do to this day.
The Pew Commission recently published a 5-year update
on their landmark blue-ribbon commission report
on current agricultural practices that found
“the present system of producing food animals in the United States
presents an unacceptable risk to public health.”
Their #1 recommendation was to ban
this nontherapeutic use of antibiotics,
but agriculture lobbies are not going
to give up the use of antibiotics without a fight.
In December 2013, the FDA released guidance for industry,
their voluntary guidance for industry.
They recommend antibiotics no longer be used
to just fatten animals for slaughter
but emphasize that they are just that:
toothless, non-legally enforceable suggestions.
This voluntary approach has come under withering criticism
from the public health and medical communities
concerned about the increase in antibiotic-resistant bacterial pathogens.
The USDA is considering even going backwards,
eliminating the requirement to even test
for staph aureus at all in the Federal school lunch program.
They understand that school-aged children
are considered a ‘‘sensitive population,’’
hence, more stringent requirements, including sampling and testing,
may be required to help assure safety and public confidence.
However, the cost of such programs must be weighed
against the cost of buying the food needed to support the program.
As one University of Iowa epidemiologist said,
“although human health should take priority over farm animals,
farmers will be reluctant to change until researchers can come up
with safe and cost-effective practices to replace the use of antibiotics.”
How much are antibiotics really saving the industry?
The net bottom line benefit from the use of antibiotic feed additives
may only be about $0.25 per animal,
which means eliminating the risky practice of feeding antibiotics by the ton
to farm animals would raise the price of meat less than a penny per pound.