The Issues: Buy Local

 

What are Antibiotics?
In humans, antibiotics are used to treat infections caused by bacteria, including ear and skin infections, food poisoning, pneumonia, meningitis and other serious illnesses. They are also crucial in treating infections that can complicate medical procedures such as surgery, cancer therapy, and transplants.sustainable Table

Antibiotics belong to a category of drugs called “antimicrobials,” and include medicines like penicillin, tetracycline, and amoxicillin. These drugs are used to kill or inhibit the growth of bacteria without causing significant harm to the host (such as a human or an animal). When bacteria are able to get past natural defenses (i.e., the skin or the highly acidic stomach), some can begin to colonize their host, discharging hazardous toxins as they multiply and when they die.

Traditionally, antibiotics were derived from natural compounds. Many organisms (including various species of fungi) produce substances that destroy bacteria and thus prevent infection. Penicillin, for example, is made from mold. Today, antibiotics such as fluoroquinolones are synthetic – meaning they are neither naturally occurring nor derived from natural compounds.

Since their first application many years ago, antibiotics have increased in number and variety. Today there are hundreds of antibiotics in use, though the discovery of new antibiotics has slowed significantly.

What are Antibiotic-Resistant Bacteria?
When bacteria are exposed to small amounts of antibiotics, the antibiotics can actually make the bacteria stronger. This is because while some microorganisms die off as a result of the antibiotic, not enough of the drug is present to kill the stronger bacteria. As a result, the stronger bacteria live on, adapt to living with low levels of antibiotics, and multiply. These stronger bacteria are called “resistant bacteria” because they’ve adapted to surviving with the antibiotics, and therefore antibiotics can’t kill them. As a result, traditional antibiotics are losing their effectiveness in the battle against infectious diseases. Some strains of tuberculosis, for example, have become resistant to common antibiotics.ii

A good example of antibiotic resistant bacteria would be Staphylococcus aureus. Thisis a highly pathogenic microbe that is linked to toxic shock, skin abscesses, and heart valve infections. In the United States, almost every strain of S. aureus is now resistant to penicillin, and strains of the disease have even begun to develop resistance to newer drugs like methicillin and vancomycin.iii The threat of prolonged illness or death from an S. aureus infection has increased as it has become more resistant and fewer drugs are able to effectively control or eliminate it.

Although antibiotic resistance is a natural phenomenon, humans have greatly speeded up the process through our overuse of antibiotics in humans and animals. Over-prescribing antibiotics for conditions like the flu or a common cold (against which antibiotics are useless) contributes to antibiotic resistance. What is less well known is that antibiotics are also fed unnecessarily to livestock, poultry, and fish to promote faster growth and to compensate for the unsanitary conditions on factory farms.

Antibiotics and the Animal Industry
Modern industrial livestock operations are an example of how rampant overuse of antibiotics threatens to increase the prevalence of antibiotic-resistant bacteria. These industrial farms have been mixing antibiotics into livestock feed since 1946, when various studies showed that low levels of antibiotics (too low to actually fight disease) seemed to help animals grow faster and put on weight more efficiently, thus increasing profits for meat producers.iv When antibiotics are used like this - for purposes other than treating an illness - it is called non-therapeutic use.

Aside from promoting growth, the routine use of antibiotics is also necessary for preventing disease in conventional industrial farming systems. Modern industrial farms are ideal breeding grounds for germs and disease. Animals live in close confinement, often standing or laying in their own filth, and are under constant stress, which inhibits their immune systems and makes them more prone to infection. Because of these conditions, about half of the antibiotics used by farms are mixed into the feed of healthy animals in order to prevent disease.v

The Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) estimates that the quantities of antimicrobials administered to livestock and poultry far outweigh the amount of antibiotics used on humans. According to UCS estimates, humans use approximately 4.5 million pounds of antibiotics annually for medical treatment and in topical creams, soaps, and disinfectants. In comparison, antibiotic use in beef, pork, and poultry production is estimated at 24.6 million pounds annually—eight times the amount used in human medicine. Thus, the use of antibiotics in livestock agriculture accounts for 70% of total antimicrobial use in America.vi

Large livestock operations produce an enormous amount of waste—over 1 billion tons annually—that often contains intact and undigested antibiotics, as well as antibiotic-resistant fecal coliforms (bacteria that live in the intestines). It is estimated that as much as 80-90% of all antibiotics given to humans and animals are not fully digested or broken down and eventually pass through the body and enter the environment intact through waste. Thus, these antibiotics are released into the environment where they may encounter new bacteria and create more resistant strains.vii Many of the antibiotics used on livestock and poultry farms are identical or similar to those used in human medicine, meaning that bacteria from farms can infect people with diseases that can not be treated with common antibiotics.viii

Antibiotic Resistance and Public Health
The rise of antibiotic-resistant bacteria is a major public health crisis because infections from resistant bacteria are becoming increasingly difficult and expensive to treat. Already, an estimated 14,000 Americans die every year from drug-resistant infections, and the National Academy of Sciences calculates that the increased health care costs associated with antibiotic-resistant bacteria exceed at least $4 billion annuallyix – a figure that reflects the cost of additional antibiotics and longer hospital stays, but not lost workdays or human suffering.x

AntibioticsAlthough everyone will be at risk if antibiotics stop working, the threat is greatest for those with weaker immune systems, such as cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy and organ transplant patients. Young children and seniors are also at particular risk because the immune system functions less effectively for people in these age groups.xi

Should a colony of drug-resistant bacteria bloom at an industrial livestock operation, there are three basic means by which the germs can make their way to the human population: via food, via the environment (i.e. water, soil, and airxii ), and via direct contact with animals (i.e., farmers and farm workers). It is estimated that 25-75% of all antibiotics administered to animals could be passed unchanged directly into the environment through manure.xiii Since huge quantities of livestock manure are sprayed on farm fields to be re-absorbed into the environment, antibiotic resistant bacteria can leech into ground water and drinking wells, endangering the health of people living close to large livestock facilities.

Sustainable Alternatives
On industrial farms, animals are administered antibiotics on a routine basis – through feed, water, or injection. But not all animals are raised in such a manner. Ending or minimizing the use of antibiotics in animal agriculture is both feasible and potentially beneficial to consumers. According to a study by the National Academy of Sciences, if the U.S. were to ban the non-therapeutic administration of antibiotics to livestock, the average consumer's total food costs would only increase by $4.85 to $9.72 per year. The study suggested that this ban would not affect the profits of farmers who utilize good management practices. Furthermore, the ban would be expected to decrease health care costs.xiv

Many small, sustainable producers do not use antibiotics at all, in large part because they don’t have to compensate for unhealthy conditions. On sustainable farms, animals are raised in a clean, natural environment that is not a breeding ground for bacteria. Other sustainable farmers will use antibiotics to treat animals only when they become sick, and they will make sure the antibiotics have passed out of the animal’s system before using its meat, eggs or milk.

Federally regulated organic standards prevent antibiotics being used in the production of certified organic meats. In the Eat Well Guide, farmers who never administer antibiotics to their animals carry the label “no antibiotic use.” Some sustainable producers will use antibiotics to treat animals that fall ill, and in this case, food from those animals cannot be sold as “USDA certified organic” or with the label “no antibiotic use.” Eat Well Guide producers who only use antibiotics when an animal becomes ill carry the label “no routine antibiotic use.” In these instances, a suitable amount of time must pass after an animal is treated and before its meat, milk or eggs can enter the food supply.

What You Can Do

  • Some consumers prefer to buy meat from animals that were never given antibiotics; other individuals are not concerned about medically-necessary antibiotic use. The key is to avoid animals that were fed low doses of antibiotics on a regular basis either to promote growth or prevent disease. Not only does this greatly increase the occurrence of antibiotic-resistant bacteria in our environment and food supply, it also indicates that the animals were probably housed in crowded, unhealthy conditions which make them prone to sickness.Sustainable Table Questions for iPod
  • Buy directly from the farmer. The best way to know how or if antibiotics were used is to ask your farmer. Find a farmer near you using the Eat Well Guide, an online directory of small farms, stores, restaurants, and online catalogs that offer sustainably-raised meat, poultry, dairy, and egg products.
  • Farmers’ markets are popping up all over the U.S. and Canada as their popularity continues to grow. If you can’t make it to the farm, farmers’ markets are a great alternative. Usually the farmer or someone who works on the farm is available and more than happy to answer your questions about antibiotic use and how the animals were raised.
  • Buy local. When you buy locally produced fruits, vegetables and meat products, you support your local economy. Community Supported Agriculture programs, Farmers’ markets and Co-ops are good options for doing this.
  • Get InvolvedAdvocate for change. Individual consumers can help bring about broader policy change by urging the government and industry to reduce unnecessary antibiotic use in animal agriculture.
  • Don’t take antibiotics unless you have a bacterial infection! Colds and viruses cannot be treated with antibiotics. And all those products containing antibiotics, such as antibacterial soaps, are no better for you than regular soap, so there’s no need to use them.

Did You Know?

  • Antibiotics belong to a class of drugs called Antimicrobials. Other drugs in this group include antifungals, antiprotozoals and antivirals.xv
  • One out of six cases of Campylobacter infection, (the most common cause of bacterial food poisoning), is resistant to a kind of fluoroquinolones, which is the antibiotic most often used to treat severe food poisoning.xvi
  • Nearly all strains of Staphylococcal (Staph) infections in the US, such as abscesses and toxic shock syndrome, are resistant to penicillin, and many are resistant to newer drugs.xvii
  • Non-therapeutic use of antibiotics has increased by about 50% since 1985.

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