70 Percent of All Antibiotics Given to Healthy Livestock
Tim Campbell
Union of Concerned Scientists 8jan01
http://www.mindfully.org/Health/Antibiotics-Healthy-Livestock-UCS.htm
Excessive use of antibiotics by meat producers, 8 times more than in
human medicine, contributes to alarming increase in antibiotic
resistance
WASHINGTON - Every year in the United States 25 million pounds of
valuable antibiotics -- roughly 70 percent of total US antibiotic
production -- are fed to chickens, pigs, and cows for nontherapeutic
purposes like growth promotion, according to a new report from the
Union
of Concerned Scientists. This finding -- 40 percent greater than the
estimate of the livestock industry for all animal uses -- is the first
transparent estimate of the quantities of antibiotics used in meat
production.
The report is also the first to show that the quantities of antibiotics
used in animal agriculture dwarf those used in human medicine.
Nontherapeutic livestock use in chickens, pigs, and cows accounts for 8
times more antibiotics than human medicine, which is using only 3
million pounds per year.
"The meat industry's share of the antibiotic-resistance problem has
been
ignored for too long," said Dr. Margaret Mellon, Director of the Food
and Environment Program at UCS and co-author of the new report.
"Antibiotics are a precious resource and should be used in animals only
when necessary."
Until now, health officials and citizens had to rely on incomplete
industry estimates to design effective responses to the
antibiotic-resistance problem. According to the new UCS report,
"Hogging
It: Estimates of Antimicrobial Abuse in Livestock," the total use of
antibiotics in healthy livestock has climbed from 16 million pounds in
the mid-1980s to 25 million pounds today. Of that, approximately 10
million pounds are used in hogs, 11 million pounds in poultry, and 4
million pounds in cattle.
"The excessive use of antibiotics by the livestock industry is
sobering," said Dr. Charles Benbrook, an independent economist and
co-author of the report. "Feeding antibiotics to animals from birth to
slaughter may modestly improve meat industry profits, but it puts
everyone's health at risk. It is time to rethink how pigs, cattle and
poultry are raised in the United States."
Available industry data appear to underestimate the usage of
antibiotics
and are far too general to help scientists explore the linkages between
drug use in livestock and the spread of resistance. With no
government-backed data available, the authors of the report devised a
methodology for calculating antibiotic use in livestock operations from
publicly available information, including herd size, approved drug
lists, and dosages. The researchers acknowledge the need for more
complete, up-to-date data on livestock antibiotic use. They invite the
pharmaceutical industry, which holds the production data, and the
animal
livestock industry, which could compile usage information, to bring
better data to the public arena. But new data must be transparent and
verifiable.
"The public has been flying blind," said Mellon. "The government should
act now to collect the needed data. The price of complacency could set
us back to an era where untreatable infectious diseases are regrettably
commonplace."
UCS recommends that the Food and Drug Administration establish a system
to compel companies that sell antibiotics for livestock use to provide
annual reports on the quantity of these drugs sold. The US Department
of
Agriculture should improve the completeness and accuracy of its
periodic
surveys of antibiotic use in livestock. The FDA, USDA, and Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention should speed up implementation of its
government-wide action plan, which calls for the establishment of
monitoring systems and the assessment of ways to collect and protect
the
confidentiality of usage data.
The FDA, which oversees the approval and cancellation of veterinary
drugs, will discuss the use of antimicrobial drugs in food animals at a
public meeting, January 22-24.
A full copy of the new report can be found on the web at www.ucsusa.org
. The Union of Concerned Scientists is a nonprofit alliance of
thousands
of committed citizens and leading scientists working to preserve our
health, protect our safety and enhance our quality of life. UCS has
used
rigorous scientific analysis, innovative policy development, and
effective citizen advocacy to achieve practical environmental
solutions.
* PLEASE NOTE: In this press release we use the terms antibiotic and
antimicrobial interchangeably. The term antimicrobial encompasses
substances, whether naturally occurring or synthetically produced,
directed against all microorganisms. Antibiotic is a narrower term that
some scientists reserve for only naturally occurring substances that
destroy or inhibit the growth of bacteria.
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antibiotic resistance
Antibiotic-resistant bacteria are on the rise. Patients once
effectively
treated for pneumonia, tuberculosis, or ear infections may now have to
try three or more antibiotics before they find one that works. And as
more bacterial strains develop resistance, more people will die,
because
effective antibiotics are not identified quickly enough or because the
bacteria causing their disease are resistant to all available
antibiotics.
Why have bacterial strains become resistant? The short answer is
overuse
of antibiotics. Physicians and hospitals have overprescribed the drugs,
and patients have demanded them -- even for illnesses not caused by
bacteria.
Veterinarians, too, overprescribe drugs to treat sick animals, and even
more, livestock producers use massive amounts to promote animal growth
and make their business more efficient and profitable. On top of that,
growers spray antibiotics on crops to control bacteria that damage
vegetables and kill trees.
While medicine must act to slow the emergence of resistant bacteria, it
is equally important to eliminate uses -- primarily agricultural --
whose benefits are economic, not therapeutic. Roughly a third of all
antibiotics produced in the United States -- about 80 percent of the
antibiotics used in agriculture -- are fed to animals to bring them up
to slaughter weight as quickly as possible. Both the Centers for
Disease
Control (CDC) and the World Health Organization have called for an end
to this abuse of antibiotics we depend on in human medicine.
UCS has launched a campaign to urge the Food and Drug Administration to
ban the use of antibiotics for growth promotion. Such a ban would have
the added benefit of pushing livestock management in the direction of
more sustainable practices. By creating conditions that produce
healthier animals, these reforms should also lead to a decrease in
therapeutic uses of antibiotics.
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Letter to Bayer Corporation from UCS and 9 other organizations
October 31, 2000
Helge H. Wehmeier, President and CEO
The Bayer Corporation
100 Bayer Road
Pittsburgh, PA 15205-9741
Via fax -- 412-778-4431
Dear Mr. Wehmeier:
The undersigned health, consumer, and other public-interest groups urge
you to voluntarily withdraw Baytril ®, a fluoroquinolone antibiotic
for
use in poultry, from the market. As you know, on October 31, 2000, the
FDA took the first step in banning fluoroquinolones for use in poultry
by publishing a Notice of Opportunity for Hearing. Bayer has 30 days to
determine whether to request a hearing; if Bayer does not, the
withdrawal automatically takes effect.
FDA's Notice sets forth detailed reasons for concern about continued
use
of fluoroquinolones in poultry, including the recent dramatic rise in
fluoroquinolone resistance among humans. Although fluoroquinolones were
approved for human use in 1986, resistance in foodborne bacteria such
as
Campylobacter and Salmonella remained extremely low until shortly after
their use in poultry began in late 1995. As of 1998, human resistance
levels were at 13.6%; as of 1999, at 17.6%. The trend is both
unmistakable and unacceptable.
These trends are particularly troubling given the importance of
fluoroquinolones in human medicine. Fluoroquinolones are the treatment
of choice for some human intestinal illnesses, most particularly food
poisoning caused by Campylobacter bacteria. Campylobacter is the most
common cause of foodborne illness in the U.S. and can be
life-threatening for persons with weakened immune systems such as the
elderly, chemotherapy patients, and transplant patients.
Fluoroquinolones are also important in treating other illnesses,
including urinary tract infections, bone and joint infections, and some
types of pneumonia.
The only other manufacturer of fluoroquinolones for poultry, Abbott
Laboratories, has already requested withdrawal of approval for its
product. We urge Bayer to do likewise without delay.
Very truly yours,
Mohammad N. Akhter, MD, MPH
Executive Director, American Public Health Association
Michael F. Jacobson, Ph.D.
Executive Director, Center for Science in the Public Interest
The Rev. Jim Lewis
President, Delmarva Poultry Justice Alliance
Fred Krupp
Executive Director, Environmental Defense
Richard Wood
Executive Director, Food Animal Concerns Trust
Alice Slater
President, Global Resources Action Center for the Environment
Mark Ritchie
Executive Director, Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy
Brother David Andrews, CSC
Executive Director, The National Catholic Rural Life Conference
Robert K. Musil, Ph.D.
Executive Director, Physicians for Social Responsibility
Margaret Mellon, Ph.D., Food and Environment Program Director, Union of
Concerned Scientists
Please direct your response to Karen Florini, Senior Attorney,
Environmental Defense, 1875 Connecticut Ave., NW, Washington, DC,
20009,
who will distribute it to other cosigners.