THE WESTERN PRODUCER | WWW.PRODUCER.COM | MAY 26, 2011
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Antibiotics administered through feed can promote growth, prevent illness and ensure animals are healthy when sent to market. |
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BEEF SAFETY | ANTIBIOTIC RESISTANCE
Microbial resistance fears unjustified: vet Education on animal health needed | Veterinarian says the public needs to understand healthy animals make safer food BY BARB GLEN LETHBRIDGE BUREAU
CALGARY — The risk of a person dying from antibiotic resistant bacteria created through beef production practices is one in 10 million, according to university researchers. That is the most accurate risk assessment that Dr. Scott Hurd, a veterinarian and associate professor at Iowa State University, is able to provide in response to concerns that antibiotic use in beef cattle production leads to antibiotic resistant bacteria that could make human health conditions difficult or impossible to treat. In a presentation May 18 at a University of Calgary veterinary school conference, Hurd acknowledged public concern about antibiotic resistance, also called microbial resistance. No link has been established between antimicrobial use in livestock and resistant bacteria affecting humans, so Hurd and other researchers have tried to analyze the risk. “What we found is the risk is one in 10 million. That’s the risk of an adverse consequence. That’s the risk that you’re not going to get better or you might get worse or maybe even someone would die,” said Hurd.
SCOTT HURD VETERINARIAN
Whether a one in 10 million risk is considered high or low, concern is not the same as risk, he said. Public fear of antimicrobial resistance, though valid, is not consistent with study results. “The actual measured risk of onfarm antibiotic use is low. All publications done to date have shown an extremely low to virtually zero risk,” said Hurd. To put his number in context, Hurd said the risk translates into 30 human cases per year in the United States of dangerous antibiotic resistance. By contrast, risk of death in a car accident is one in 7,000, and risk of death in an airplane is one in one million. Risk of dying from a bee sting is one in six million. “That’s why I like to tell people that you are more likely to die from a bee sting than you are to get a few extra days of diarrhea because of (antimicrobial) use in livestock.”
Nevertheless, public concern continues to increase and must be addressed, said Hurd. Response could include more discussion on the public health benefits of antibiotic use in animals, which he said are not well understood. “The alternative risk of sub-optimal animal health may actually be higher than the risk of antibiotic use,” said Hurd. “Healthier animals make safer food.” Without use of antibiotics, he suggested more sick animals would be shipped to slaughter plants and require extra inspection by on-site veterinarian inspectors. The resulting delays and pressures on processing might result in sick animals entering the food chain, “and more contaminated product we assume means more sick people.” Concern about microbial resistant bacteria is not new, despite a recent re s u r g e n c e i n t h e at t e nt i o n i t receives. Hurd noted a 1970s move in the U.S. to ban antimicrobial use in livestock was averted on the basis of animal health. “In the ’70s they demonstrated the benefits for animal health of low level use. At that point in the ’70s, that was enough. People said if it’s good for the animals, they’ll accept it.” Today, Hurd said the U.S. Food and
Drug Administration doesn’t consider animal health in its assessment of risk from eliminating antibiotic use in livestock. “When it comes to this issue, antibiotic use on the farm, the people who are regulating that decision in the U.S. FDA have told me specifically, we’re not allowed to look at benefits. And it is mindboggling, it really is.” In a later interview, Hurd said resurgence of concern about resistance is likely related to the 1994 Denmark move to ban on-farm antibiotic use for disease prevention and growth promotion. “They’re encouraging the rest of the world to do that, and so it regenerated the concern that had been somewhat allayed in the early ’70s in the U.S.” Drug use to treat sick pigs doubled in Denmark after the ban and has remained high, but total volume used was reduced. However, Hurd said the types of antibiotic used to treat sick animals are more similar to those used on humans, which might affect development of resistance and associated risk to human health. Antimicrobials used for animal disease prevention and growth promotion are older types not generally used for human treatment. But it’s the latter two uses that tend
to upset the public. Treatment of animal illness is understood but other uses are perceived as unnecessary and needlessly risky in their potential to create resistant bacteria. “There’s a distinction between antibiotics that are given in the feed. Just because it’s given in the feed does not mean that it’s just for growth promotion,” said Hurd. “A lot of people get confused about that. Use in the feed can be for treatment for prevention or for growth promotion. People don’t understand that, because they don’t put antibiotics to feed their children, but that’s because they can give the kid a pill. It’s hard to give 1,000 pigs a pill every day.” That said, Hurd acknowledges that public concern is valid and persists in part through the animal rights agenda and the political agenda. As for alleviating public health concerns over microbial use in livestock, he thinks more information on its public health benefits will be key. “People are just starting now to get their head around the fact that healthy animals do make safer food, that we actually reduce the number of human illness days when we take healthy animals to market, and antibiotics are a key part of taking healthy animals to market.”
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