Antibiotics in Agriculture: Why a Cause for Concern
The National Catholic Rural Life Conference (NCRLC) supports discontinuing the non-therapeutic use
of medically important antibiotics in livestock. This issue continues to cause deep concern in the medical
community due to the growing public health problem of antibiotic resistance.
In 1997, the NCRLC Board of Directors called for an immediate moratorium on large-scale livestock and
poultry animal confinement facilities. The practice of growing a large number of animals in confined
facilities, which greatly increases susceptibility to diseases, must be discontinued. The practice of
confinement is an affront in itself to the dignity of animals. The factory farm practice of automatically
treating animals with antibiotics is now leading to problems in human public health.
On the basis of the precautionary principle, livestock practices that lead to environmental harm -- in this
case, antibiotic resistance in bacteria -- must be avoided. The sustainability and safety of our food and
health systems should be ensured without harm to the environment.
At the very least, meat produced with the use of antibiotics should be so labeled. Consumers have a right
to know the conditions in which and to which their food is grown.
At a food and agricultural policy gathering in December 2000, the Most Rev. Raymond Burke, Roman
Catholic Bishop of La Crosse and former president of the National Catholic Rural Life Conference,
cautioned that: The constant administration of antibiotics to combat the inherently unhealthy nature of
[animal] confinements, without regard for the full results, will corrupt nature which inherently produces
life and sustains it, and turn it into a source of disease and death.
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AMA Action on Antibiotics in Agriculture
[June 20, 2001]
Health, consumer, and other public interest groups praised the American Medical Association (AMA) for
recognizing animal agriculture as a serious factor in the growing public health problem of antibiotic
resistance. At its annual meeting in Chicago, the AMA endorsed a resolution opposing the unnecessary
use of antibiotics to speed the growth of healthy farm animals and urging that all such agricultural use of
antibiotics be terminated or phased out.
"Giving antibiotics that are used in human medicine to healthy animals is a risky practice which puts
human health on the line," said David Wallinga, M.D., a physician with the Institute for Agriculture and
Trade Policy. "Antibiotic resistance has the potential to plunge us back into medicine's Dark Ages when
doctors couldn't treat infections caused by bacteria."
"The advent of antibiotic drugs sixty years ago turned bacterial infections into treatable conditions, rather
than the life-threatening scourges they once were," said Rebecca Goldburg, Ph.D., Senior Scientist
with Environmental Defense.
"Today, however, the effectiveness of many life-saving antibiotics is waning, the legacy of years of
overuse in both human medicine and agriculture. Health officials in the U.S. are concerned that many
strains of bacteria are becoming "superbugs," resistant to more and more antibiotics. Children, the
elderly, and people with weakened immune systems-including chemotherapy, HIV, and transplant
patients-are particularly at risk from strains of antibiotic-resistant bacteria," said Goldburg.
While overuse of antibiotics in humans is regarded as an important cause of the decreasing effectiveness
of antibiotics, the AMA's resolution specifically acknowledges the role of animal agriculture in this
public health crisis. "Although precise data do not now exist, the best available estimates indicate that
most antibiotic use in the United States occurs in raising animals for food," said Jane Rissler, Ph.D.,
Senior Scientist with the Union of Concerned Scientists. "About 70% of all antibiotics are used -- not to
treat sick animals --but to artificially boost weight gain in healthy poultry, hogs, fish, and beef cattle,
and to compensate for unsanitary growing conditions, especially on crowded factory farms," said
Rissler. Most of the agricultural antibiotics also have important uses in people.
"This extensive and unnecessary use drastically shortens the "life span" of an antibiotic, said Tamar
Barlam, M.D., of the Center for Science in the Public Interest. "Clearly, it is important to extend the
lifetime of any drug that is effective against human disease, especially because few new antibiotics will
be available in the near future. For some illnesses, doctors now have only one or two drugs of last
resort to use against resistant bacterial infections. The AMA's acknowledgement of the role of animal
agriculture in this impending crisis is the first step towards ensuring antibiotics work for sick people
who need them," said Barlam.
Given the rapid evolution of bacteria, all antibiotics have a limited period of effectiveness. But the more
often bacteria are exposed to an antibiotic, the more chances they have to develop resistance against it.
When animals are given antibiotics to artificially boost weight gain and compensate for poor growing
conditions, they are given low doses that kill only the most susceptible bacteria and leave the surviving
bacteria to pass on their resistant features to succeeding generations.
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