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By Margaret Mellon, Ph.D., J.D., Director, Food and Environment Program
and Susan Prolman, J.D., Washington Representative, Food and Environment Program at the Union of Concerned Scientists
The true cost of industrial animal agriculture includes the rise of antibiotic resistant bacteria due to the overuse and misuse of medically important antibiotics at factory farms.
Antibiotics, one of the medical miracles of the 20th century, are becoming less effective in human medicine due to the rise of resistant bacteria. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) has declared antibiotic resistance one of its “top concerns.” Antibiotic-resistant bacteria cause more-virulent infections and increase human suffering. Patients are forced to take more sick days, disrupting businesses and the economy. The National Academy of Sciences estimated that antibiotic resistant bacteria cost U.S. society at least $4 to $5 billion each year.
When bacteria are exposed to antibiotics, those bacteria resistant to the drugs live to reproduce. Therefore, while antibiotics are important for disease treatment, their use can create stronger, more-resistant strains of bacteria over time. For this reason, it is important to use antibiotics only when absolutely necessary, for instance to treat sick animals. Unfortunately, factory farms, also called concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs), routinely use massive amounts of antibiotics, including those important in human medicine, for nontherapeutic purposes.
CAFOs crowd thousands or even hundreds of thousands of animals into tightly confined spaces. These industrial animal operations use antibiotics nontherapeutically—not to treat sick animals—but to compensate for overcrowded, unsanitary, and stressful conditions and to promote faster growth. Meat producers use an estimated 70 percent of all U.S. antibiotics and related drugs for such purposes. This translates to about 25 million pounds of antibiotics and related drugs fed every year to livestock—almost eight times the amount given to humans to treat disease.
The nontherapeutic use of antibiotics involves low-level exposure in feed over long periods—an ideal way to encourage bacteria to develop resistance. Resistant bacteria can be transferred from animals at CAFOs to humans in three ways: through meat consumption, through direct contact with the animals, and through environmental contamination.
There is a growing recognition that industrial agriculture's contributions to antibiotic resistance must be addressed. On the Federal level, the Preservation of Antibiotics for Medical Treatment Act would end the routine, nontherapeutic use medically important antibiotics in animal agriculture. The American Medical Association, American Public Health Association, National Association of County and City Health Officials, The Humane Society of the United States, and Sierra Club are among the more than 380 health, consumer, agricultural, environmental, humane, and other organizations that have endorsed this bill. States are moving forward as well, with legislation addressing this issue currently pending in Maine and Ohio. On a local level, citizens are asking their schools and restaurants to stop purchasing meats raised with the nontherapeutic use of antibiotics.
To learn more about the problem of the overuse of antibiotics at CAFOs and how you can help, please visit the Union of Concerned Scientists' Food and Environment website at http://www.ucsusa.org/food_and_environment/antibiotic_resistance/index.cfm
and the Keep Antibiotics Working website at http://www.keepantibioticsworking.com.
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