Antibiotic use in livestock
[11] Bacterial diseases are a leading cause of death and a future without effective antibiotics would fundamentally change the way modern human as well as veterinary medicine is practised.
On farms, whaling and fishing fleets as well as in processing plants and aquaculture operations, antibiotics were used to treat and prevent disease, increase feed conversion, and preserve food.
Their rapid diffusion into nearly all areas of food production and processing was initially viewed as a story of progress on both sides of the Iron Curtain.
[23] This development coincided with an increase in the scale of individual farms and the level of confinement of the animals on them, and so routine preventative antibiotic treatments became the most cost-effective means of treating the anticipated disease that could sometimes arise as a result.
[27] Since the 1900s, livestock production on United States farms has had to rear larger quantities of animals over a short period of time to meet new consumer demands.
[27] By 2001, this practice had grown so much that a report by the Union of Concerned Scientists found that nearly 90% of the total use of antimicrobials in the United States was for non-therapeutic purposes in agricultural production.
[31] The drugs listed below can be used to increase feed conversion ratio and weight gain, but are not legally allowed to be used for such purposes any longer in the United States.
Some drugs listed below are ionophores, which are coccidiostats and not classified as antibiotics in many countries; they have not been shown to increase risk of antibiotic-resistant infections in humans.
[11] Infectious diseases are the third leading cause of death in Europe and a future without effective antibiotics would fundamentally change the way modern medicine is practised.
As a result, antibiotic-resistant bacteria have been found in pristine environments unrelated to human activity such as in the frozen and uncovered remains of woolly mammoths,[38] in the polar ice caps[39] and in isolated caves deep underground.
Macrolides are also extremely useful in the effective treatment of some Mycoplasma species in poultry, Lawsonia in pigs, respiratory tract infections in cattle and in some circumstances, lameness in sheep.
There is no evidence that agriculture is 'largely to blame' for the increase in resistant strains and we should not be distracted from finding adequate ways to ensure appropriate antibiotic use in all settings, the most important of which being clinical medicine."
The risk appears greatest in those handling or managing livestock, for example in a study where resistant bacteria were monitored in farm labourers and neighbours after chickens receiving an antibiotic in their feed.
Some of them are associated with livestock and on-farm companion animals that are then able to be transmitted to humans, also called livestock-associated methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (LA-MRSA).
[56][57] Although total numbers colonised by LA-MRSA remain low, and fewer still develop infection,[58][59] the condition is nonetheless rising in prevalence, difficult to treat, and has become a public health concern.
[70][71][72][73] Standard precautions such as pasteurising, or preparing and cooking meat properly, food preservation methods, and effective hand washing can help eliminate, decrease, or prevent spread of and infection from these and other potentially harmful bacteria.
Antibiotics given to livestock in sub-therapeutic concentrations to stimulate growth when there is no diagnosis of disease – a practice still permitted in some countries – may kill some, but not all, of the bacterial organisms in the animal, possibly leaving those that are naturally antibiotic-resistant in the environment.
It noted that many dairy and meat producers in Asia and the Americas had an economic incentive to continue high usage of antibiotics, particularly in crowded or unsanitary living conditions.
When illness duration is extended by antibiotics resistance, the increased health care costs create a larger economic burden for families and societies.
[94] The Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy estimates approximately $2.2 billion in antibiotic resistance- related healthcare costs each year.
[96] Historically, the restrictions have existed to prevent contamination of mainly meat, milk, eggs and honey with chemicals that are in any way harmful to humans.
[109] UK-China Newton fund has started to build multi-discipline collaboration cross the border to stop the increasing global burden caused by AMR.
[110] To achieve the goal of citizen public health and food safety, "The National action Plan on Controlling Antibiotic-Resistance Bacteria on animal origins (2016–2020)" has been published by Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs of People's Republic of China since 2017.
[137] The reduction has largely been achieved without legislation, and has been credited to voluntary industry action coordinated by the Responsible Use of Medicines in Agriculture (RUMA) Alliance[138] through a 'Targets Task Force' comprising a prominent veterinary surgeon and farmer from each livestock enterprise.
[142] eMB-Pigs provides a centralised electronic version of the existing paper or electronic medicine book kept on farms, and allows pig producers to record and quantify their individual use of medicines for easy review with the veterinary surgeon, at the same time as capturing use on each farm so that data can be collated to provide national usage figures.
It subsequently reports that "Under Guidance for Industry (GFI) #213, which went into effect January 1, 2017, antibiotics that are important for human medicine can no longer be used for growth promotion or feed efficiency in cows, pigs, chickens, turkeys, and other food animals.
[65] In addition to this, The Pew Charitable Trusts has stated that "hundreds of scientific studies conducted over four decades demonstrate that feeding low doses of antibiotics to livestock breeds antibiotic-resistant superbugs that can infect people".
"[169] The statement was issued in response to a United States Government Accountability Office report that asserts: "Antibiotic use in food animals contributes to the emergence of resistant bacteria that may affect humans".
[173] In another study it was found that using probiotics, competitive exclusion, enzymes, immunomodulators and organic acids prevents the spread of bacteria and can all be used in place of antibiotics.
These include improving the living conditions for animals, stimulating natural immunity through better nutrition, increasing biosecurity, implementing better management and hygiene practices, and ensuring better use of vaccination.
