Animal antibiotics kill more people than breast and prostate cancer

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

I spend a lot of time writing about the need to provide adequate health coverage to all Americans and the policies that could bring the hoped for result. To that end, I have frequently discussed the crime of allowing 45,000 people in America to die each year because they aren’t so fortunate as to have health insurance.

But making positive changes in our health care system it is not all about complicated economics and social policy. Sometimes people are dying from policies that should be easy to change – even if politically tricky.

Did you know that 65,000 Americans die every year from drug resistant strains of bacteria that result from the over usage of antibiotics in animals and humans? That’s more than the total number of deaths in this country each year from breast and prostate cancer combined. And, yes, it’s more than the number of deaths in the United States each year resulting from a lack of health insurance.

Antibiotics not only treat infections in livestock but allow the animals to grow faster. This gets pig, cow and chicken products to your table more quickly and at a lower cost, allowing farmers to improve their cash flows and profits. However, in the process, the animals develop drug resistant infections that are passed onto people and become part of the human disease trail.

Researchers are now finding that these drug resistant strains are having an impact throughout the world as diseases like malaria, tuberculosis and  staphylococcus infections are resurging in new and untreatable forms.

This is a living breathing problem, it’s the big bad wolf and it’s knocking at our door,” said Dr. Vance Fowler, an infectious disease specialist at Duke University. “It’s here. It’s arrived.”
Via The Associated Press

For those inclined to believe that this is more a problem of humans overusing antibiotics (which we clearly do) every time we fear the arrival of a sore throat, consider this -

Last year, 35 million pounds of antibiotics were consumed in the United States. 70% of those drugs were given to pigs, chickens and cows. Around the world, 50% of the antibiotics go to livestock.

That’s not chickenfeed. Scratch that.  Actually, it is chickenfeed.

America’s farmers give their pigs, cows and chickens about 8 percent more antibiotics each year, usually to heal lung, skin or blood infections. However, 13 percent of the antibiotics administered on farms last year were fed to healthy animals to make them grow faster. Antibiotics also save as much as 30 percent in feed costs among young swine, although the savings fade as pigs get older, according to a new USDA study.

Via The Associated Press

While proponents of organic and free range food products have known this for some time, others are beginning take notice. The World Health Organization recently issued a caution that surging antibiotic resistance is one of the leading threats to human health. The White House has deemed the problem urgent and there is legislation in the House to clamp down on the usage of antibiotics for reasons other than treating actual infection.

This one shouldn’t be too hard to fix, yes?

Not so much.

Enter the lobbyists. The drug and agribusiness companies have spent over $200 million this year battling legislation, including the newly proposed limits on antibiotic use.

And where there’s a lobbyist, you can bet there’s a Republican leading the charge:

Chaos will ensue,” said Kansas Republican Congressman Jerry Moran. “The cultivation of crops and the production of food animals is an immensely complex endeavor involving a vast range of processes. We raise a multitude of crops and livestock in numerous regions, using various production methods. Imagine if the government is allowed to dictate how all of that is done.”
The Associated Press

Really? I wonder if Rep. Moran has ever heard of a little government agency called the Food and Drug Administration who exists precisely to insure that this sort of thing does not happen.

The FDA appears to have a desire to do something about this problem but are pretty powerless. Having already approved the use of numerous antibiotics for animals back in the 50’s, it is difficult to turn back the clock, particularly in view of the special interests standing in the way.

This is something that will have to be handled by Congress- and the sooner the better.

By the way, I do not wish the farmers ill nor do I relish the idea of them suffering economic damage. American farmers have it pretty tough already.

It does, however, appear that the farmers may have some options. I recently discussed this with a dairyman in Central California, an area that produces much of the nation’s dairy products. It turns out that using garlic to treat infections in livestock is an effective way of fighting disease without having to use antibiotics. Not only does this approach lower their overhead by cutting down on expensive antibiotics and vet bills,  but the alternate treatments  can go a long way towards resolving a problem which presents a very clear an present danger to the world’s health.

Look for this to become one of the key world health issues in 2010.