SciAntics

Did you know, more than half of all the antibiotics manufactured in the US isn’t prescribed to people? They’re given to animals. 

Antibiotics with a side of steak

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has just released a new report outlining the sales data of antibiotics for animal agriculture use in the US. Antibiotic use in food production topped out 13.2 MILLION (!!!) kg of antibiotics last year. This number is up on last years report, the only other report performed by the FDA in this regard despite claims by the industry that less antibiotic is being used per animal. In many ways this reflects the global food demands but it also highlights a very important question, should we be pumping our meat full of antibiotics?

The use of antibiotics in industrial food production was introduced as a preventative measure to avoid animals getting sick, allowing more to grow to weight and be shipped off to market. But this resulted in healthy livestock receiving medication and becoming a breeding ground for antibiotic-resistant strains of many bacterial species including E. coli. Many antibiotics are not actually prescribed and in fact do not legally need to be, which is baffling to say the least as we approach a world with fewer and fewer effective antibiotics.

The effects of antibiotic use can be clearly seen when the US sales data is compared to the European data. In some parts of Europe, the use of antibiotics for “growth promotion” is illegal and in fact the European Parliament recently moved to prevent “prophylactic use” which would eliminate the argument of disease prevention as a cue for antibiotic use. In these parts of Europe the amount of antibiotic sold translates to less than 50mg of antibiotic per kilogram of meat, in the US it is at least six times that according to Dr. Gail Hansen, senior officer and staff veterinarian for Pew Campaign on Human Health and Industrial Farming who referred to the World Health Organisation data reproduced below. Careful breakdown of the FDA report also echoes these concerns about prescription as there was an overall increase in antibiotic sales noted but a decrease in the sales of aminoglycosides and cephalosporins which are only available by prescription suggesting a further shift toward prescription independent antibiotic use.

Routinely antibiotics are delivered via the feed to animals. Because of this they receive inconsistent and generally lower than prescription dosages of antibiotic, the perfect situation for the generation of resistance. Antibiotic resistance develops when an antibiotic is used on a population of bacteria. Most of the population will die but any that do survive due to random mutations that they harbor will pass them onto their descendants producing antibiotic-resistant strains. Standard administered doses can overwhelm even those mutants who contain the saving mutations but extended low dosage provides those capable of surviving with enough of an advantage to survive and repopulate, even in the presence of the antibiotic. Worse than this, the presence of a single antibiotic resistant strain can result in the rise of multiple species exhibiting resistance as many bacterial species have the capacity to share genes with each other.

Read the full article by James Byrne (Via Scientific American)

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