The News Journal (Wilmington, Delaware)
June 2, 2005 Thursday
SECTION: NEWS; Pg. 1A
Sussex leads U.S. in poultry antibiotics;
Report: Tainted waste runoff could pose a danger to public health
By JEFF MONTGOMERY The News Journal
Delaware and Sussex County lead the nation "by far" in the per-acre use of antibiotic and growth-promoting feed additives, part of a nationwide trend that could jeopardize public health, according to estimates published Wednesday by a national environmental group.
Environmental Defense, a nonprofit group based in New York, singled out the state in a broader warning that nationwide use of the drugs in farm animals was contributing to development of drug-resistant bacteria.
Those bacteria can in turn spread to farm workers, family members, soil, public waters and the general public, undermining the value of antibiotics in protecting people, some scientists have cautioned.
In Delaware, one of nation's top chicken-producing states, antibiotics can reach soil, streams and people by way of the thousands of tons of manure that collect in the region's thousands of broiler-growing houses.
Poultry farm workers and their families are routinely exposed to drug-tainted wastes, Environmental Defense said. Local farmers have for decades spread manure on fields as a fertilizer, trickling antibiotic residues into soils, groundwater and tributaries that feed the inland bays, Nanticoke River and Chesapeake Bay.
Environmental Defense said the drugs can promote development of antibiotic-resistant bacteria that can "contaminate water used for swimming, fishing, boating, or even drinking," potentially traveling both by water and by birds, insects, fish and wildlife.
Debora Jones, who lives along Brick Mill Road east of Seaford, said Wednesday she wants more information.
"If it's harmful to people, they need to look at it," Jones said.
Delaware produced 240.7 million broiler chickens last year, and Sussex County ranked as the nation's top broiler producing county. Sales totalled $686.5 million, making broilers the state's most important farm product and leading agricultural employer.
"Studies suggest that people living in areas with intensive use of antibiotics as feed additives are at greater risk of contracting antibiotic-resistant infections," Dr. Ellen Silbergeld, professor of environmental health services at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, said in a prepared statement.
Farmers and producers have no requirement to report drug use, Environmental Defense said, so the report relied on industry averages and national statistics to estimate antibiotic consumption at the county and state level.
Based on the calculations, researchers estimated that Delaware farms use more than 381,000 pounds of antibiotics yearly, triple the amount of antibiotics per thousand square miles as the next-nearest state, North Carolina.
Sussex County led all but three counties and most states in farm use of a variety of medications, including common, medically important drugs like penicillin and erythromycin.
Industry groups quickly branded methods used by Environmental Defense misleading and flawed.
"It's math hocus-pocus," said Ron B. Phillips, a spokesman for the Animal Health Institute, a trade group for veterinary medicine producers. "The use of antibiotics in animals has gone down in the last five years. That's in the face of increased meat production."
Phillips said that the report relied on outdated numbers and unrealistic assumptions.
"They assumed that every animal gets the maximum amount of every single antibiotic possible," Phillips said. "That's not how veterinary medicine is practiced."
A state agency scientist said separately Wednesday that regulators already are working with the University of Delaware on a study of environmental risks posed by one of the compounds mentioned in the report.
The Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control and a university research project focused on environmental effects of an arsenic-bearing compound called Roxarsone, commonly used to control intestinal parasites in poultry. Environmental Defense estimated that Sussex County farms used 62,321 pounds of the drug in 2002.
Arsenic is a known carcinogen that can cause blood disorders, circulatory problems and respiratory ailments.
"We're focused specifically on what the fate of the arsenic in Roxarsone is once it winds up on the ground" in poultry manure, said Richard Greene, a scientist in DNREC's watersheds section.
"Twenty to 50 metric tons of arsenic have been going onto the Delmarva Peninsula annually from Roxarsone," Green said. "EEThat's why we need to take a closer look."
Joe Forsthoffer, a spokesman for Perdue Farms, said the company does not use antibiotics continuously or for growth promotion.
"On average, less than 1 percent of our chickens receive antibiotics and only when necessary for the humane treatment of ill or at-risk birds, under the guidance of a veterinarian," Forsthoffer said. "E We treat as few birds as possible, prescribing their treatment no longer than medically deemed appropriate."
Environmental Defense said that producers often use antibiotic feed additives "to promote growth and to compensate for crowded, stressful and often unhygenic conditions on industrial-scale farms."
The group has urged the Food and Drug Administration to ban some antibiotics for farm use, and has called for legislation to phase out use of some drugs as animal food additives.The News Journal (Wilmington, Delaware)
