Antibiotics big on Ga. farms;
Use might help drug-resistant diseases spread
MIKE TONER
Livestock growers in a handful of states, including Georgia, use the preponderance of all antibiotics that are added to animal feed --- a practice widely thought to aid the spread of drug-resistant human illnesses --- researchers and public policy analysts reported Wednesday.
"Feeding antibiotics to animals is not only a major cause of antibiotic-resistant bacteria in the human food supply, but also results in the presence of antibiotic-resistant bacteria in animals and their waste," says Rebecca Goldburg, senior scientist for the Environmental Defense Fund.
"These antibiotics are not added to food to treat sick animals, but to promote slightly faster growth or prevent disease that could result from the crowded, stressful conditions on industrial-scale farms."
Nationwide, the EDF says, an estimated 26.5 million pounds of antibiotics, seven times the amount used to treat people, are added to animal feed every year to promote growth or prevent outbreaks of disease.
The group says Georgia, which ranks first in the nation in poultry production, is third in the use of antibiotics in animal feed. Georgia, which produces more than 1 billion broiler chickens a year, uses an estimated 1.8 million pounds of antibiotics. Only North Carolina and Iowa use more.
The group notes that its calculations --- the first to dramatize local differences in the use of agricultural antibiotics --- are based on studies by another environmental group, which supplied the figure of 26.5 million pounds of antibioltics used in U.S. agriculture.
State-by-state figures are based on the latest recent census of farm animals by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. In addition to Georgia, North Carolina and Iowa, the group says, Arkansas, Alabama, Minnesota, Mississippi and Missouri and Texas also each use more than 1 million pounds of antibiotics in a year for "nontherapeutic" purposes.
The group cautioned that the figures are only estimates --- and blamed the pharmaceutical and agricultural industries for a lack of hard numbers.
"These are only approximations because no real data is available from the industry and no one requires them to report it," says EDF attorney Karen Florini. "Even though these are estimates, we are confident they show that the overuse of antibiotics on farms is concentrated in parts of the country."
The poultry industry was sharply critical of the effort. "It's guesswork," says Richard Lobb of the National Chicken Council. "The numbers give an exaggerated and distorted picture of antibiotic use in the industry."
Environmental advocates, however, are not the only groups concerned about reducing the use of antibiotics in livestock feed --- a practice that, until recently, was condoned by the Food and Drug Administration.
Congress is considering legislation to phase out the use of medically important antibiotics as feed additives --- an effort endorsed by 380 organizations, including the American Medical Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Public Health Association.
In the absence of legislation, some segments of the food industry are taking matters into their own hands.
Starting this year, McDonald's Corp. is requiring all of the fast food chain's direct suppliers of 2.5 billion pounds of beef, pork and chicken to shun the use of antibiotics as a feed supplement --- a measure the company says "will ultimately help protect the public health."
In addition to the risks associated with antibiotic-resistant bacteria in fresh meat, industry critics say overuse of antibiotics on farms exposes workers to resistant germs, threatens to contaminate waterways with resistant bacteria, and creates a reservoir of resistant germs in the environment that can spread to humans.
"Even benign bacteria that are resistant can swap their genes with human pathogens as easily as my kids share jokes on their instant message machines," says Ellen Silbergeld, environmental health professor at Johns Hopkins University.
"With antibiotics, the more you use them, the faster you lose them," Goldburg says.
GRAPHIC: ELIZABETH LANDT / Staff ANTIBIOTICS FOR LIVESTOCK, CHICKENS Estimated use in feed additives (in millions of pounds per year) North Carolina: 3,127,995 Iowa: 2,997,062 Georgia: 1,843,468 Arkansas: 1,678,720 Texas: 1,460,423 Alabama: 1,438,243 Minnesota: 1,280,307 Mississippi: 1,244,396 Missouri: 1,055,202 Oklahoma: 964,656 Estimated use of antibiotics by humans (in millions of pounds per year) Nationwide: 3,000,000 Source: Environmental Defense FundThe Atlanta Journal-Constitution
