End of the line? A new report says it's time to stop putting antibiotics in feed for livestock.
End the practice of using antibiotics as growth promoters in livestock reduces the risk to human health without harming health or animal farmers, according a report by the World health Organization (WHO) released today. The WHO report based on the experience of Denmark, which eliminated the controversial practice.
For more than 40 years, breeders have used low doses of antibiotics to fatten livestock healthy, probably by relaxing the minor infections are not overtly sick animals. This regular treatment can lead to bacteria that are resistant to antibiotics, including strains that cause disease in humans. In 1998, Denmark became the first country to ban the practice, despite predictions of sick animals, more contaminated meat, and the economic pain to farmers industry. To see how the so-called "Danish experience" played, the researchers studied the prevalence of resistance to antibiotics in farm animals, in slaughterhouses, in meat sold in grocery stores and in healthy people ; and the impact of the ban on animal health and economic costs to farmers. The WHO committee, which is composed of 10 independent university and government researchers from eight countries met last fall in Foulum, Denmark, to see what has been learned.
Phase-out reduces the overall use of antibiotics in pigs and poultry by 54% from its peak of 1994 to 01, the committee concluded. The animals seemed to be fine: There was only a small increase in the use of antibiotics to treat infections. At the same time, there was no increase in the meat to infections such as Salmonella and Campylobacter . The annual net loss for hog producers was just 1% and was even lower for poultry farmers - a cost that could be offset by an increase in consumer confidence in the meat, followed by higher demand , according to the panel. "In circumstances similar to those of Denmark," the panel wrote, "the use of antimicrobials for the sole purpose of growth promotion can be discontinued."
Richard Carnevale of the Institute of Health of the United States of an animal, which represents manufacturers of antibiotics in animals, says that the benefits of public health in Denmark were negligible defects and Denmark, which provided the data, to minimize the "significant impacts on animal health and economic costs to producers," such as the construction of special barns to reduce exposure to bacteria. But Stuart Levy, president of the Alliance for the Prudent Use of Antibiotics, an advocacy group based in Boston, called the WHO report "important" and agrees with its conclusions. "The time has come to remove growth promoters," says Levy. "We do not need them."
Related Sites
WHO report
Information General on the use of antibiotics in animal husbandry of the Alliance for the prudent use of antibiotics (APUA)
APUA Summary of the report on the agricultural use of antibiotics
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