030718 Cut Antibiotic Use In Food Animals

USA TODAY - It's not often that fast-food chains rush in where federal watchdogs fear to tread. But that's just what happened when McDonald's announced recently that it would cut antibiotic-growth promoters in its poultry and beef. The new policy, however limited and open to criticism, may save more Americans from drug-defying food-borne germs than any regulations the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has so far cooked up.

By the end of 2004, McDonald's direct suppliers, including most of its poultry producers, must phase out their use of human antibiotics, which speed the development of chickens, pigs and cattle.

Although McDonald's action should be applauded, what we need is stronger government regulation of antibiotic use by all farmers. Given the raft of innovative ways to fatten food animals, we shouldn't waste medicine's most precious therapies on animals that are not even sick.

In animal agriculture, small daily quantities of antibiotics boost growth, and larger amounts in somewhat shorter courses “prevent” disease. Such widespread use of antibiotics is the ideal way to foster antibiotic- resistant bacteria. In fact, the bacteria we ingest in tainted food -- organisms such as salmonella, campylobacter and E. coli -- are increasingly impervious to once-standard treatments such as penicillin and tetracycline.

Even our newest, end-of-the-line medicines are being threatened by farm practices. More than half of grocery-store chickens carry bacteria that resist Synercid, which was approved for people less than four years ago. How did this resistance spring up so quickly? For more than a quarter century, U.S. poultry farmers have added the growth promoter virginiamycin -- a cousin of Synercid -- to chicken feed.

Antibiotic-resistant infections can cause more prolonged or more severe illness. They are especially dangerous for children, older people and individuals with damaged immune systems, such as AIDS or cancer patients. And they are easier to catch: According to a 2002 report from the Boston-based Alliance for the Prudent Use of Antibiotics, drug resistance each year accounts for at least 47,000 additional U.S. salmonella and campylobacter infections.

Some infections triggered by drug-resistant pathogens in our meals may not even look like traditional cases of food poisoning. In 2001, researchers reported three far-flung outbreaks of drug-resistant urinary tract infections in young U.S. women. The infections were caused by identical strains of E. coli, a common food-borne bacterium -- prompting scientists to speculate that all three epidemics may have been caused by the same widely distributed food.

Farmers have used growth-promoting antibiotics in the belief that the inexpensive drugs benefit their bottom line. Now it seems the scientific and economic assumptions behind their actions may be dubious. Two years ago, a Danish study found that after farmers cut out antibiotic-growth promoters in 1998, the main downside was not that the chickens were thinner, but that the birds ate 1% more feed -- a negligible cost offset by savings on antibiotics.

A 1999 Institute of Medicine report contradicted the common industry claim that withdrawing these drugs would jack up food prices. Using the livestock industry's own estimates, researchers calculated that if farmers quit using antibiotic-growth promoters, the added annual cost would be less than $10 per U.S. consumer.

But farmers are not the bad guys in this story. In a low-margin business where pennies per pound can spell the difference between survival and bankruptcy, off-patent antibiotics amounted to a cheap insurance policy. Sales pitches from pharmaceutical companies added to the pressure.

The new McDonald's mandate -- itself market-driven, because it appeals to the growing ranks of customers who value “natural” products -- is a good first step. But it doesn't go far enough. For one thing, because the suppliers' actions will continue to be proprietary information, outside groups won't know whether, or how much, antibiotic use has dropped. Farmers also may continue to use the drugs for “disease prevention” rather than “growth promotion.”

That's why we need strong federal regulations that apply to all producers. While the European Union banned antibiotic growth-promoting drugs in 1998, the FDA has been more tentative. Its “framework” for assessing antibiotics in food animals rates animal drugs according to their importance in clinical medicine, then sets “human health thresholds” for drug resistance. But it has done little to limit use. To be fair, the FDA in some ways has its hands tied by congressional agricultural committees, which have their own vested farming interests.

Ideally, lawmakers should ban in food animals all resistance-causing antibiotics important to human health unless a herd or flock actually is diseased. They also should support research on alternatives to existing growth promoters, such as vaccines, probiotics (microbes that alter animals' intestinal milieu) and improved animal husbandry; underwrite development of new animal-only antibiotics; and offer farmers financial incentives to abandon old practices.

As Europe has proven, antibiotic resistance needn't be the inevitable price of progress. The antidote lies not in marketing ploys, but in political courage.

Madeline Drexler is a Boston-based journalist and author of Secret Agents: The Menace of Emerging Infections.

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