According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), antibiotic resistance is a major threat to public health. U.S. lawmakers have had many chances to enact legislation that would address this situation. However, they often fail to pass such acts and our society keeps inching closer to an imminent public health disaster. Although antibiotics have saved countless lives since the 1940s, things are starting to change at an alarming rate. Chances are you have probably heard about one “superbug” or another in the news. These so-called superbugs are strains of bacteria that have become resistant to antibiotic treatment. If we are not careful, we could be cast back in time to a world where there are no effective treatments for life-threatening bacterial infections.
Scientists agree that overuse of antibiotics is a leading cause of the development and spread of antibiotic resistance. Such overuse is surprisingly common on farms and has been addressed in the Preservation of Antibiotics for Medical Treatment Act. This act was originally introduced to the House of Representatives in 2007 and is aimed at reducing the amount of antimicrobials used in farm animals. About 80 percent of antibiotics sold in the United States are used in agriculture. The vast majority of animals getting these drugs are not even sick; rather, they are constantly given low doses of antibiotics to promote their growth and feed-efficiency. This phenomenon is well documented, but poorly understood and has been a normal practice in the farming industry for decades.
Other than promoting animal growth, there are no reasons for feeding antibiotics to healthy animals. Some farmers claim to use low doses of antibiotics to prevent illness from occurring in their herds, but this practice only promotes the growth of antibiotic-resistant bacteria. These bacteria can then inadvertently enter the food supply and have been found in meat, dairy and produce. They can even share their antibiotic resistance genes with other bacteria. Food-borne and other diseases caused from such microorganisms are more difficult and more expensive to treat. A 2012 study from Columbia University published in the Journal of Clinical Infectious Diseases reported that infections caused by antibiotic-resistant bacteria cost about $15,000 more to treat than those caused by bacteria that are susceptible to antibiotic treatment.
Some European countries have already started to ban the non-therapeutic use of antibiotics in animals. A report published in Clinical Microbiology Reviews highlights such a ban in Denmark that resulted in reduced antibiotic resistance in pathogenic bacteria. In addition, there was little change in the health and lifespan of the animals and only a slight increase in production cost. Opponents of such legislation in the United States argue that our situation is different, and we would have higher increases in both animal morbidity and cost to the farming industry. While there is no hard data to support such claims, these concerns should be taken into consideration if Congress does decide to act on these issues. Restrictions on antibiotic use should be implemented slowly, and the health of farm animals should be closely monitored as the measures go forward. The current proposal to the U.S. Congress, however, would not completely eliminate the use of antibiotics on farms; it would only restrict use of antibiotics that are important to human health. Antibiotics that are not used to treat human diseases would still be acceptable for use by farmers. If an animal or a herd gets sick and the only treatment is a medically important antibiotic, its use would be permitted until the animal or the herd is recovered. The United States should be encouraged by the success of such measures in Europe.
The FDA concluded over 35 years ago that treatment of animals with low doses of antibiotics promotes the development of antibiotic resistance in bacteria. However, until recently it has taken no action to address this. The FDA, CDC and U.S. Department of Agriculture have teamed-up to track the spread of antibiotic resistance and make recommendations for antibiotic use. It is important for lawmakers to consider such guidelines and it would be even better if they begin to make them mandatory. In 1998 the National Academy of Sciences stated that the minimum cost to the United States from antibiotic-resistant bacteria would be around $5 billion per year. In 2004 the Infectious Diseases Society of America reported that “about two million people acquire bacterial infections in U.S. hospitals each year, and 90,000 die as a result. About 70 percent of those infections are resistant to at least one drug.” As resistance to antibiotics develops and spreads, these numbers will rise. Therefore, we need to take action as a nation and stop allowing the use of medically important antibiotics for non-medical purposes.
Guest author Jennifer Herricks is a Ph.D. candidate at The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston under William Margolin, professor of microbiology and molecular genetics. She is writing at the invitation of Kirstin Matthews, Ph.D., science and technology policy fellow at the Baker Institute.