Antibiotic Resistant Bacteria
By Tarah
Heinzen,
Sierra Club Conservation Organizer
Half a century ago, Aldo
Leopold noted, “there are two spiritual dangers in not owning
a farm. One is the danger of supposing that breakfast comes from
the grocery, and the other that heat comes from the furnace.”
Industrial society has long distanced people from
the sources and modes of production of the food we eat,
preventing many of us, especially urbanites like myself, from
making informed and intelligent consumer choices. And since
Leopold wrote these words, the industrialization of our food
production system has reached a point even he may not have
anticipated, further isolating increasingly urban consumers from
the practices and technologies employed in modern agriculture.
Industrial
agriculture presents dangers beyond the spiritual, however. With
the expansion of factory farming not only our food, but also the
way it is being produced, poses a threat to human health.
Increasing numbers of people are aware of the crowded, stressful
and unsanitary conditions in which most livestock in the U.S.
are raised. Far fewer, though, are aware these conditions
necessitate farmers to administer antibiotics to their herds on
a routine basis, not only to keep the animals alive, but also to
accelerate their growth. Often these antibiotics are premixed
into the herds’ feed, making it virtually impossible for even
non-confinement farmers to raise their animals drug-free.
Feeding
animals low doses of antibiotics on a daily basis creates
antibiotic resistant bacteria by killing the weak bacteria and
leaving the antibiotic resistant to multiply. As a result,
resistant bacteria are finding their way into our waterways and
food supplies, and medical professionals are seeing evermore
antibiotic-resistant infections in humans. Because most
antibiotics pass through an animals system and end up in the
manure, the USGS has found trace antibiotics in 17% of waterways
tested nationwide. Iowa Department of Natural Resources testing
has been extremely limited, but we’re beginning to see
antibiotics in our waters across the state.
And
where there are antibiotics, there are resistant bacteria. A
study of whole chickens and ground turkey purchased in Des
Moines and the Twin Cities by the Sierra Club and the Institute
for Agriculture and Trade Policy last year gives cause for
concern. Findings included:
- 95% of the whole chicken
tested contained Campylobacter and 61.7% of that
Campylobacter was resistant to at least one antibiotic.
- 45% of the ground turkey
contained Salmonella, and 62.25% of that Salmonella was
resistant to at least one antibiotic. 31.1% was resistant to
4 or more
antibiotics.
The
standard agribusiness response to the trend of rising
antibiotic-resistant infections in humans is that the misuse of
antibiotics in human medicine, not agriculture, is to blame. Of
course human misuse plays a role. However, the Union of
Concerned Scientists estimates that 70 percent of all
antibiotics used in the United States are given to livestock
animals that are not even sick. In addition, all major health
authorities, including the World Health Organization, the
American Medical Association, the Centers for Disease Control
and Prevention, and the Iowa Medical Society agree the
agricultural abuse of medically important antibiotics needs to
be stopped in order to protect their effectiveness.
Why,
then, aren’t the views of these organizations being translated
into policy here in the United States? Why is our government
protecting the interests of corporate animal factories at the
expense of human and environmental health?
The
antibiotics being used to keep animals alive in factory farms
are not only a threat to human health; they are a crutch
supporting a corporate agricultural system, which, if social and
environmental costs were taken into account, would fail. Being a
responsible and informed consumer is harder now than ever
before. With policymakers looking the other way, however, only
consumers can force corporate meat producers to stop abusing
medicines.
To
find antibiotic-free meat near you, visit www.eatwellguide.com.
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