Antibiotics Make Livestock More Profitable May Be Killing Us

Antibiotics Used to Make Livestock More Profitable May Be Killing Us

MARK KARLIN, EDITOR OF BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT

Old Style Cattle YardThat the overuse of anitbiotics by Americans is leading to more strains of bacteria that are antibiotic resistant is widely accepted.  There are many reasons for this including overprescription by physicians, over marketing by pharmaceutical firms and unnecessary consumer demand at times, among others.

However, one of the main use of antibiotics that contributes to at least 23,000 deaths a year as a result of new strains of antibiotic resistant bacteria, according to a recent report, is their administration to livestock to increase animal growth -- and, therefore, increased corporate and individual profits in larger amounts of meat to sell and faster turnover.  Another use is to keep farm animals who are kept in cramped warehouse conditions from outbreaks of bacterial epidemics through the "preventive" use of antibiotics.

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According to a September 16 San Francisco Chronicle article, "Report links antibiotics at farms to human deaths":

The Centers for Disease Control on Monday confirmed a link between routine use of antibiotics in livestock and growing bacterial resistance that is killing at least 23,000 people a year.

The report is the first by the government to estimate how many people die annually of infections that no longer respond to antibiotics because of overuse in people and animals.

The threat is real and growing:

Along with the annual fatalities, the report estimated at least 2 million antibiotic-resistant infections occur each year. Frieden said these are "minimal estimates" because they count only microbes that are resistant to multiple antibiotics and include only hospital infections, omitting cases from dialysis centers, nursing homes and other medical settings.

As noted earlier, there are many reasons for the overuse of antibiotics leading to this crisis, but the profiteering of the meat industry looms large:

At least 70 percent of all antibiotics in the United States are used to speed growth of farm animals or to prevent diseases among animals raised in feedlots. Routine low doses administered to large numbers of animals provide ideal conditions for microbes to develop resistance.

"Widespread use of antibiotics in agriculture has resulted in increased resistance in infections in humans," Frieden said.

The European Union has already banned most large scale antibiotic use in livestock raised for human consumption. But in the United States, Big Pharma and the farm industry have successfully fought off protecting human life by keeping the FDA and Congress from imposing serious limits.  In fact, the FDA -- in 2012 -- only asked that farmers voluntary cut back on the profligate use of antibiotics.

Bills that have been introduced in Congress to severely restrict antibiotics given to animals raised for consumption have gone nowhere.

The importance of this just-issued CDC report is that it establishes a clear link between growing antibiotic resistance and its use to "fatten up" and warehouse livestock. It's not the only cause, but it's a significant one.

Old McDonald had a farm -- and it may just kill you.
http://www.truth-out.org/buzzflash/commentary/item/18202-antibiotics-used-to-make-livestock-more-profitable-may-be-killing-us