Scratchings-and-Sniffings

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Antibiotic Resistant Bacteria Posted: 29 Oct 2009 11:51 AM PDT Did you know that 70% of all antibiotics sold in the US are fed to swine, cattle and poultry? How about that 90% of the hogs and 97% of the poultry in the US are grown on industrial "farms"? An industrial farm is a giant factory where swine and poultry are housed in confinement. Some people actually call them "factory farms." These farms are nothing like my Uncle Red's farm where, as a youngster, I spent entire summers taking care of pigs, chickens, cows, horses and the farm cats and dogs. It was that experience that first got me thinking about becoming a vet. Uncle Red's farm would be called a "hobby" farm these days. Unless, of course, it's a sub division. Another interesting tidbit about the use of antibiotics on factory farms is that the vast majority of antibiotic use is for perfectly healthy animals. Antibiotics are routinely fed to cattle, swine and poultry at low levels to increase weight gain and prevent the spread of disease in crowded conditions. So why should we care? We should care because of the alarming increase in antibiotic resistant bacteria. The same bacteria that can infect our dogs, cats and ourselves. Bacteria become resistant when they are exposed to low levels of antibiotics over time. This is exactly what happens in industrial farming. Our pets and our families can get exposed to these bacteria through contaminated meat and produce and through direct environmental exposure. If we or our pets are exposed to a resistant strain and develop an infection as a result, it becomes that much more difficult to treat. It is estimated that antibiotic resistance adds 4 to 5 billion dollars in additional cost each year to the over burdened US Health Care system. These facts came to light for me with the release of the Pew Commission on Industrial Farm Production. The Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health collaborated on the report. I first read about this report in a veterinary journal. I was sort of surprised to hear that the American Veterinary Medical Association took issue key recommendations made in the report. The American Association of Bovine Practitioners was not too thrilled, either. No one is talking about restricting the use of antibiotics in sick animals. Veterinarians will still have access to the full array of antimicrobial agents for our dogs and cats and for sick farm animals, too. However the general manager of your local industrial swine confinement operation, cattle feed lot or poultry house would not be able to dump sacks of antibiotics into the feed and water of his animal units. Studies cited in the Pew report point out that better sanitation and less over crowding in feed lots, poultry barns and swine confinement units would do as much to prevent the spread of disease as the low level feeding of antibiotics. That does not seem too unreasonable to this veterinarian. In the interest of pet health and public health, I guess I'll have to take issue with the AVMA and the Bovine practitioners on this one.

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