Pig Out

NATURE | EDITORIAL 
Nature 486, 440 (28 June 2012) 
doi:10.1038/486440a
Published online 27 June 2012
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v486/n7404/full/486440a.html

     If farmers do not rein in the use of antibiotics
     for livestock, people will be severely affected.

The spread of dangerous bacteria that are resistant to
antibiotics is fuelled by overuse of the drugs -- and
not just in people. Farmers around the world routinely
feed antibiotics to their animals, not only to prevent
and treat infections, but also to make their animals
grow faster. This leads to drug-resistant bacteria in
the animals, and this resistance can spread to the
bacteria that infect us.

The overuse of antibiotics in farm animals is a global
issue. Human propensity for trade and travel ensures
that resistant bacteria spread easily around the world,
so as long as any one country pumps its pigs and poultry
full of the drugs, everyone is at risk.

In 1998, the Danish poultry industry took the unusual
step of volunteering to stop using antibiotics for the
promotion of animal growth. Two years later, the
country's pork farmers did the same. Denmark might be a
small country, but it is the world's largest exporter of
pork. And it didn't stop there, writes Frank Aarestrup
in a Comment piece on page 465, Denmark went on to
reduce its overall use of antibiotics in livestock by
60%. It achieved this by creating a comprehensive
surveillance system to monitor overuse, and limiting the
amount of money that vets could make from selling the
drugs to farmers.

Many feared that the changes would cripple Denmark's
pork production. Instead, production rose by 50%. "Any
country trying to limit the use of antibiotics in
livestock can learn from what my colleagues and I did in
Denmark, adjusting what worked to local needs,"
Aarestrup writes. These are encouraging words, but it is
unlikely to be that simple.

The biggest obstacle is likely to be generating the
political resolve and public support needed to crack
down on the lucrative trade in antibiotics. This was
possible in Denmark because there, perhaps uniquely,
warnings from the medical community were picked up by
the media, creating widespread public awareness of the
problems caused by the overuse of antibiotics. People in
other countries may not be so engaged, particularly when
faced with the inevitable lobbying of the agricultural
and veterinary sectors, which make big profits from
selling antibiotics.

Also a problem is the fact that in many countries,
farmers tend to work independently of each other. Almost
all Danish farmers, by contrast, are members of the
Danish Agriculture and Food Council, through which they
frequently communicate and interact. This meant that
they had a convenient forum in which to debate the issue
and come to the decision to stop using antibiotics for
growth. Denmark also has a detailed system in place to
keep track of the effects of antibiotic use by farmers,
which helps to enforce the regulations. In the United
States, drug companies provide the Food and Drug
Administration with data on the quantity of antibiotics
sold to farmers, although they do not routinely say what
types of animal the drugs are given to, or what the
drugs are used for. The nation therefore has the
necessary infrastructure and reporting system to monitor
and regulate the use of antibiotics for animal growth,
should it wish to do so, as do other countries. And the
European Union has already banned such drug use.

The first step to building the case for tighter control
is to obtain more specific data. Researchers should be
able to survey ten farms in ten US states, for example,
and extrapolate those data nationally to build up an
accurate picture of antibiotic use. The drugs are almost
certainly overused, and are almost certainly having a
damaging impact on public health, so publishing the
results would help in raising awareness of the problem
and generating the necessary support. The people of
Denmark deserve praise for their efforts, and other
countries, and their people, should look more carefully
at what their animals are being fed.

___________________________________________

Portside aims to provide material of interest to people
on the left that will help them to interpret the world
and to change it.

Submit via email: [log in to unmask]

Submit via the Web: http://portside.org/submittous3

Frequently asked questions: http://portside.org/faq

Sub/Unsub: http://portside.org/subscribe-and-unsubscribe

Search Portside archives: http://portside.org/archive

Contribute to Portside: https://portside.org/donate