[Mb-civic] Antibiotic abuse - Editorial - The Boston Globe

[William Swiggard]

<>Antibiotic abuse

<>

<>Boston Globe Editorial
August 8, 2005

THE GREAT, life-saving medical advance of the 20th century was the 
discovery of antibiotics. Now, in the 21st century, the effectiveness of 
these miracle drugs is being undercut by their misuse in both people and 
animals.

The fight to end overuse of the drugs in animals had two recent 
victories: a decision last month by the Food and Drug Administration to 
ban the use of two antibiotics in poultry and an announcement Tuesday by 
a major food services company, Compass Group, that its pork suppliers 
would no longer use antibiotics to promote growth. As welcome as these 
steps are, the best route to stop agricultural misuse of these drugs is 
legislation pending in Congress.

According to the Union of Concerned Scientists, 70 percent of all 
antibiotics used in the United States are put in the feed of poultry and 
livestock. This is done not to treat infections but to speed growth or 
prevent disease in the unhygienic quarters of the animals. One effect of 
this indiscriminate use of the drugs is to breed strains of bacteria 
that are resistant to them, eroding their ability to cure infections in 
humans. The risk is greatest with germs that pass from animals to 
humans, such as salmonella.

In 2000, the FDA started the process of banning two antibiotics in 
poultry farming after a study showed that 17.6 percent of humans who 
were treated with these drugs in 1999 had resistant bacteria strains. In 
1995, when the drugs were first approved for use in poultry, just 1 
percent of humans had resistant strains. One maker of poultry 
antibiotics, Abbott Laboratories, quickly agreed to withdraw its drug 
from the market, but the Bayer Corp. chose to contest the ban. Because 
of the FDA's cumbersome procedures, it has taken five years to get a 
final ruling against Bayer.

That timeline is an argument in favor of a Senate bill, whose sponsors 
include Senators Olympia Snowe of Maine and Edward Kennedy, that would 
ban the nontherapeutic uses of antibiotics in animals. The ban would go 
into effect two years after enactment of the law, with provisions for 
financial aid to farmers. The National Academy of Sciences estimates 
that the ban would raise a person's annual meat bill by $5 to $10. The 
American Medical Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics, and 
the American Public Health Association all favor an end to this use of 
antibiotics.

<>Resistant bacteria are also the result of doctors prescribing the 
drugs for conditions not caused by bacteria and of patients prematurely 
breaking off a course of antibiotic doses. Efforts to curb resistance 
have to address these as well. But banning the nontherapeutic use of 
antibiotics in animals is a sensible step to make sure medicine doesn't 
lose these potent weapons against infection.

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/editorials/articles/2005/08/08/antibiotic_abuse/ 

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