The Campaign to End Antibiotic Overuse:
The Ohio Environmental Council has teamed up with Keep Antibiotics Working to advocate for more prudent administration of these critical life-saving antibiotic drugs.

Keep Antibiotics Working: The Campaign to End Antibiotics Overuse (external link) is a coalition of health, consumer, agricultural, environmental, humane and other advocacy groups with more than nine million members dedicated to eliminating a major cause of antibiotic resistance: the inappropriate use of antibiotics in food animals.

The Issue:

Throughout America, infectious diseases are emerging that we may not be able to cure because bacteria have become resistant to antibiotics.

Over the last 60 years, effective antibiotics have turned bacterial infections into treatable conditions, rather than the life-threatening scourges they once were. The effectiveness of many life-saving antibiotics is, however, waning (external link). Health experts have deemed the rise in antibiotic resistance a public health crisis. Everyone is at risk from antibiotic-resistant infections, but children, seniors, and people with weakened immune systems are particularly vulnerable (external link).

The overuse of antibiotics is to blame for the rapid rise in antibiotic-resistant bacteria. In addition to human medicine, a major source of this overuse is the use of antibiotics as feed additives for livestock and poultry. This overuse mostly occurs on large confined animal feeding operations (CAFOs), which often raise pigs, poultry or cattle by the thousands or tens of thousands under crowded conditions. Much of the use of antibiotics in animal feed is not to treat sick animals, but to promote growth and to compensate for crowded, stressful and unsanitary conditions.

Unfortunately, such low-dose uses of antibiotics for extended periods of time are one of the best ways to speed the development of antibiotic-resistant bacteria. Although no definitive data are available, by one estimate antibiotic feed additives for livestock and poultry is about 24 million pounds, or 70% of the total amount of antibiotics used in the United States. Roughly half of these antibiotic feed additives belong to classes of drugs also used to treat human disease.

Although even careful use of antibiotics can result in the emergence of antibiotic-resistant bacteria, inappropriate use greatly accelerates this process. The more often bacteria are exposed to antibiotics, the more they become resistant. Because bacteria reproduce rapidly, these antibiotic-resistant bacteria can spread efficiently. In addition, unlike higher organisms, bacteria can transfer DNA to other bacteria that are not their offspring, and even to members of completely unrelated bacterial species. In effect, bacteria can teach one another how to ‘outwit’ antibiotics.

Via food: During slaughter and processing, the bacteria in an animal’s intestinal tract, including in fecal matter, can spread to the meat that ends up in the grocery store. In fact, the meat in the grocery stores is widely contaminated with antibiotic-resistant bacteria. A study published in the January 2003 issue of Consumer Reports showed that 42 percent of the chickens bought at supermarkets and other stores were contaminated with Campylobacter bacteria and 90 percent of the this bacteria tested showed resistance to at least one antibiotic.

Via working with livestock: Workers in the livestock industry may pick up resistant bacteria by handling animals, feed, and manure. They can then transfer the bacteria to their family and community members.

Via the environment: Groundwater, surface water, soil and the air are contaminated from the nearly two trillion pounds of manure generated in the United States each year. This manure contains resistant bacteria, creating an immense pool of resistance genes available for transfer to bacteria that can cause human disease.

There are a few new antibiotics on the horizon, and bacteria are becoming resistant far faster than new antibiotics are becoming available. Unfortunately, antibiotic development is often on the pharmaceutical back burner. Reasons include the likelihood that bacteria will become resistant to any new antibiotic manufactured and the high R&D costs of developing a new antibiotic. (By one estimate, the cost of developing a new drug tops $800 million.). Additionally, new antibiotics tend to be considerably more expensive than existing ones, and thus contribute to ever rising healthcare costs.