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Panel explores link between antibiotic use on animal farms and human
health

Panelists at last week’s forum on the use of antibiotics in food
animals included (L to R): Bob Martin, Brian Snyder, Shelley Hearne
and Thomas Fekete. Photo: Mark Brakeman
By Mark Brakeman 29.JUL.09

Antibiotic medicines were one of the greatest medical innovations of
the twentieth century, but it’s no secret that due to the overuse of
the drugs, germs have developed immunities to them.
Much of the blame for the problem comes from doctors regularly
prescribing those medicines on their patients, but the drugs are also
routinely added to the feed of animals raised for human consumption,
and that greatly compounds the problem.

That issue was highlighted Tuesday, July 21, at a forum on the effect
of the overuse of antibiotics in raising animals on human health and
health costs.

"The best way to keep health care cost down is to not get sick in the
first place," said Dr. Shelley Hearne, Managing Director of the Pew
Health Group at The Pew Charitable Trusts and a Visiting Professor at
the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

For animals raised for food that means reducing toxins released into
the air, water and soil and by discontinuing the use of antibiotics.

The Pew Health Group works to improve the health and well being of all
Americans by reducing unnecessary risks in food, medical and consumer
products.

By keeping the animals in good health in the first place, Hearne
continued, would make the use of antibiotics unnecessary. If normal
animal husbandry practices (including sanitary and space
considerations) were followed by producers of food animals, she
explained, animals would remain healthy and would not need
antibiotics.

Hearne said bacteria cannot only develop resistances to germ-fighting
compounds but can pass on those immunities to other bacteria. And the
germs can develop resistances to drugs other than the one originally
used to eliminate them.

This has led to a profusion of drug resistant strains of bacteria in
humans. Bob Martin, a senior officer at the Pew Environment Group,
said the overuse of antibiotics to raise animals for food is a threat
to public health.

And while the medical overuse of antibiotics in humans is also largely
responsible for the growth of drug-resistant microbes, Martin said,
"we’re not going to solve the problem by not using drugs in hospitals.
Where do we cut back?"

Hearne said animal farm operators must use antibiotics sparingly, but
soon they may be required to do so. An act now before the federal
legislature would control the use of antibiotics by banning non-
essential uses.

But more important, Hearne said, is reforming the food animal industry
to improver the unsanitary conditions on those farms that cause
animals to get sick in the first place.

"Big farm operations breed sickness and infestation" through over
crowding and poor sanitation.

Martin, who also served as executive director of the Pew Commission on
Industrial Farm Animal Production, said antibiotic use in large animal
farms harm the animals and is detrimental to the communities in which
the farms are located due to groundwater contamination by runoff of
animal waste containing those pharmaceuticals

But it is also a threat to the public at large. The overuse of those
products, Martin explained, creates greater resistant strains of
bacteria in humans. The compounds use to treat the animals, he said;
need to be studied to learn their affect on people.

His recommendation to thwart the problem would go beyond ending the
routine use of antibiotics to offset poor animal husbandry (antibiotic-
laced animal feed is as easily available as regular feed) and to end
their non-pharmaceutical use altogether.

Health costs due to infections run in the billons of dollars a year,
Martin said. The money spent on hospital-acquired infections cost $28
billion to $59 billion in

Ending antibiotic used in food animals though would result in $5
increase in food costs.

He said hat in 1998 Denmark banned the non-therapeutic use of
antibiotics in animal farms. In combination with that prohibition came
the improvement of the conditions of the farms. They were made better
ventilated, the animals were given more room, and their contact with
humans was reduced.

As a result, he said, mortality went down, the therapeutic use of
antibiotics on the animals fell off and productivity went up.

In order to improve the farms‘ operations to reduce antibiotics
contamination, Martin called for phasing out both the confinement
systems the animals are often placed in to allow the holding more live
stock in a tight space and liquid waste management systems.

That system spreads drug-resistant bacteria, he said. Waste material
on the farms is first made into slurry that eventually becomes
agricultural waste that is spread on fields where food crops are
grown.

Martin said bacterial resistance to germ-fighting drugs could be found
in the feces of both human and animals.

The use of antibiotics on animals, he recommended should be used not
only on a case-by-case basis but with the same conside3ration given to
human patients

Brian Snyder, executive director of the Pennsylvania Association for
Sustainable Agriculture (PASA), said it is the harsh economic
realities of the food production system in this country that forces
all food producers to do anything possible to run their businesses,
more cheaply. Of every dollar the consumer pays for food, he
explained, less than 20 cents goes to the farmer

The producer of the material in which the food is packaged makes more
money than the farmer. And the food industry relies on the fact that
farmers are willing to accept less and les money for their wares, ha
added

The unsanitary conditions of the farms, due in part to the operator’s
need to cut costs, means all the animals are sick all of the time,
Snyder said, adding, that if the farmer uses feed with added
antibiotics, "everybody gets it and everybody’s happy.

To mend the rift that splits good animal husbandry and fair prices for
farm goods, Snyder said, "The choice we have is to make sure farmers
get [their fair share]."

And the best way to accomplish that, he suggested is to follow the
common directive of all market reformers: cut out the middleman.

In that respect, Pennsylvania is ahead of most states. Snyder’s PASA
is the largest statewide, member-based sustainable farming
organization in the United States and since 1992, it has brought
together farmers and consumers looking for fresh, wholesome, locally
produced and sustainable food.

He said direct sales of food from the farmer to the consumer in
Pennsylvania reached $75. 9 million in 2007. That was good enough to
put the Keystone State third in line in the country, behind California
and New York.

But with the stress placed on regionalism by current planners in many
disciplines, an even brighter picture emerges. Second place New York
and Pennsylvania together account for nearly as much in dollar sales
as first place California.

In addition to changing specific conditions of farms to make them less
stressful on the animals, Snyder said smaller sizes of the operations
also would help ease stress on the animals

He said the number of hogs raised in the United States has not changed
in 50 years, so the huge farms that exist in order to supply enough
pork to meet the market’s demand do not need to be so big. Smaller
farms, with fewer animals per pen.

"The way [hogs] are housed is drastic."

With a smaller facility, he added, the microbe-spreading liquid waste
system could be avoided. A deep-bedding system that could produce
compostable waste, a process unusable with a large population of
animals.

But he added that the current marketing system for meat would need to
be redirected to make small farm use practicable. "We need to change
federal policy."

Dr. Thomas Fekete has come full circle in his view of the use of
antibiotics on animals.

When the section chief of Infectious Diseases at Temple University
School of Medicine was a child, his family raised cattle on a small
scale.

"Antibiotics were a miracle," he said. "You could treat a sick
animal."

As life got in the way, he fell away from raising animals. But now he
owns ten acres of sheep.

He said he purchased the animals from a buyer who kept them inside
instead of letting them run wild (or tip-toe, as sheep will do) in
their natural habitat, and when he took them to his property they got
sick and died.

That’s when he rediscovered antibiotics. "You go to the store, buy
medicated feed, the animals are healthy."

He soon found that the lambs of ewes that had been given antibiotic
feed were at market weight at the time they were weaned. But he then
learned that the animals that ate the germ-fighting feed were still
getting sick, so now he uses antibiotic-laced feed only to treat sick
animals.

All panelists agreed that reform of the way food animals are raised is
essential to solving the problem of runaway, drug-resistant bacteria
by decreasing the chance that animals will get sick in the first
place.

According to Snyder, the only things animals need for good health
besides good food are clean water, fresh air and sunlight. All these
things are, in some measure, lacking in large-scale animal production
operations.

But all is not dim in the picture for the future of fighting bacteria.

Snyder explained that to develop immunities, bacteria need o develop
new genes to do the job. And "if the bacteria have to carry more
genes, they’re not going to be happy." That could lower their ability
to compete with others for survival and they (and their descendents)
would eventually be evolved out of the larger population.

Although, Martin, who also has done extensive research and writing in
the areas of infectious disease, antibiotic efficacy and the
epidemiology of medication resistance, said the problem would be
reduced, not eliminated. "It will not happen overnight, but it will
happen," Snyder said.