Organic Practices Prohibit the Use of Antibiotics in Meat Production

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Mar 28, 2003 19:54 PST

ORGANIC PRACTICES PROHIBIT USE OF ANTIBIOTICS IN MEAT PRODUCTION

by Barbara Haumann

 

Recent news stories have reported that several large conventional

poultry companies will stop using a poultry antibiotic that the U.S.

Food and Drug Administration suspects could be responsible for food-

borne transmission of antibiotic-resistant bacteria.

 

This is good news for consumers. However, consumers who want to

avoid the use of antibiotics in food production have a sure-fire way

to do so by buying organically produced meat.

 

Organic practices prohibit the use of hormones, antibiotics or other

animal drugs in animal feed for the purpose of stimulating the

growth or production of livestock. If an antibiotic is used to

restore an animal to health, that animal cannot be used for organic

production or be sold, labeled or represented as organic. Thus,

organic practices avoid the abuse of antibiotics that could have

profound consequences for treatment of disease in humans.

 

Public health authorities now link low-level antibiotic use in

conventionally raised livestock directly to greater numbers of

people contracting infections that resist treatment with the same

drugs. As a result, the American Medical Association in June 2001

adopted a resolution opposing the use of antimicrobials at non-

therapeutic levels in agriculture, or as pesticides or growth

promoters, and urged that such uses be ended or phased out based on

scientifically sound risk assessments.

 

" The reason to buy meat without antibiotics is not because the

antibiotics in the meat are transferred to the person, but because

of how the antibiotics increase the number of antibiotic-resistant

bacteria, " according to Dr. Stuart Levy, director of the Center of

Adaptation Genetics and Drug Resistance at Tufts University Medical

School, in a Jan. 17, 2001, New York Times article by Marion Burros.

 

In its report " WHO Global Strategy for Containment of Antimicrobial

Resistance " released in September 2001, the United Nations' World

Health Organization (WHO) noted that farmers' use of antibiotics to

fatten livestock and poultry enables microbes to build up defenses

against the drugs, jump up the food chain, and attack human immune

systems. WHO urged farmers to stop the practice of using antibiotics

for growth promotion if such antimicrobials are also used in humans.

 

Conventional farmers routinely feed antibiotics to livestock because

flocks and herds tend to grow faster with their use. However,

scientists, doctors, and government officials fear this is

contributing to the rise of antibiotic-resistant " super-bugs. " Farm

animals in the United States receive 24.6 million pounds of

antibiotics a year, which may be fueling the rise of drug-resistant

bacteria, according to the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS). UCS

noted that about 70 percent of all antibiotics made in the United

States are used to fatten up livestock [ " Hogging It: Estimates of

Antimicrobial Abuse in Livestock, " by Margaret Mellon, Charles

Benbrook, and Karen Lutz Benbrook, Union of Concerned Scientists,

January 2001 (report available at www.ucsusa.org)].

 

Studies are showing the effects are real. Microbiologist Rustam

Aminov and colleagues at the University of Illinois at Urbana-

Champaign, for instance, have discovered that bacteria in the soil

and groundwater beneath farms seem to be acquiring tetracycline

resistance genes from bacteria originating in pigs' guts. Studying

the environmental effects of antibiotics used as growth promoters on

two swine farms, Aminov's team analyzed samples from farm-waste

lagoons and from groundwater reservoirs beneath the lagoons, and

found that bacteria in the soil and groundwater carried tetracycline

resistance genes [Applied & Environmental Microbiology, Vol. 67,

page 1494 (2001)].

 

Meanwhile, three studies published in the Oct. 18, 2001, issue of

The New England Journal of Medicine verified that antibiotic-

resistant bacteria are widespread in commercial meats and poultry in

the United States and also are found in consumers' intestines. The

studies show evidence that the routine use of antibiotics to enhance

growth in farm animals can encourage the growth of drug-resistant

bacteria, which may threaten people who undercook their meat or

consume food or water contaminated by animal droppings. An

accompanying editorial written by Dr. Sherwood L. Gorbach, an

infectious disease specialist at Tufts University's medical school,

urged a ban on the routine use of low-dose antibiotics to aid animal

growth and prevent infection because it sets up conditions for the

emergence of resistant bacteria.

 

Thus, food establishments, from supermarkets to foodservice

operations, may wish to increase their offerings of organic meat as

consumers increasingly seek options to avoid unnecessary use of

antibiotics in the food chain.

 

http://www.theorganicreport.com/pages/82_antibiotics.cfm

_________________

JoAnn Guest

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