The Overuse of Antibiotics in Livestock Feed Is Killing Us

The 2000s were go-go years for antibiotic resistance. Thanks to the overprescription of antibiotics in medical settings and the non-therapeutic use of antibiotics in concentrated animal feeding operations (or CAFOs), we've aided the emergence of 'superbugs' -- or drug resistance microorganisms. Antibiotic resistance (AR) has led to the deaths of 70,000 Americans a year.

You'd think this would elicit some immediate action to prevent this public health nightmare from growing. But in 2007 when the (now) late Sen. Edward Kennedy introduced legislation to discourage the overuse of the antibiotics responsible for AR, it gained no traction. The reason? Kennedy stepped directly on the toes of two of the country's most powerful lobbying interests -- Big Ag and Big Pharma.

Agribusiness, it seems, cannot keep up its unsustainable feedlot system of raising thousands of animals in confinement, with poor sanitation and unhealthy diets, if it the animals weren't being pumped full of copious amounts of antibiotics.

"It seems scarcely believable that these precious medications could be fed by the ton to chickens and pigs," said the bill's background text. "These precious drugs aren't even used to treat sick animals. They are used to fatten pigs and speed the growth of chickens. The result of this rampant overuse is clear: meat contaminated with drug-resistant bacteria sits on supermarket shelves all over America."

Worse, when the FDA issued a directive in 2008 to ban non-therapeutic use of cephalosporin antibiotics in livestock (drugs also used in humans) to curtail resistance, irate lobbyists stormed Capitol Hill and the Bush administration backed down.

Now, with a new administration and Congress, Kennedy's bill has a House version, support from 300 organizations including the American Medical Association, American Public Health Association, American Academy of Pediatrics and American College of Preventive Medicine—and a good chance of passage.

The Preservation of Antibiotics for Medical Treatment Act (PAMTA) sponsored in the House by Rep. Louise M. Slaughter, D-NY (who has degrees in both microbiology and public health) would phase out non-therapeutic use of "medically important antibiotics" in livestock and strengthen standards for approval of new livestock antibiotics while still allowing their use in sick animals. Eighty-four percent of grower-finisher swine farms, 83 percent of cattle feedlots and 84 percent of sheep farms currently use antibiotics non-therapeutically, according to the bill. Seventy percent of antibiotics are fed to livestock, not humans, in the U.S.

Nor is use in livestock the only resistance culprit. Antibiotics are also abused by hospitals, clinics and doctors to prevent infection and to "treat" viruses when patients, especially parents of young children, want the psychological reassurance of a pill. Even antibiotic hand sanitizers and laundry detergents contribute to resistance, as do natural antibiotic treatments like tea tree oil. In fact AR might be the ultimate biological demonstration of the principle, "That which doesn't kill you makes you stronger."

Europe banned human-use antibiotics in livestock in 1998 and all non-therapeutic use of antibiotics in livestock in 2006, making it a test kitchen for AR reduction, particularly in Denmark, the world's largest pork exporter. In Denmark, antibiotic use is down 51 percent and bacteria and AR bacteria are also down, says the Pew Campaign on Human Health and Industrial Farming, with no increase in the cost of meat. Sweden, Norway and the Netherlands have also reported AR reductions as has Australia.

Reductions of antibiotic use are also underway in European hospitals. In Norway, testing and isolating patients with MRSA (methicillin resistant S. aureus, considered the granddaddy of resistant microbes) and prescribing fewer antibiotics has brought down the AR rate, according to an in-depth AP report in January.