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US Newswire
"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 percent 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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