Farmers cut back on antibiotics

Omaha World-Herald | Leslie Reed | January 6, 2010

LINCOLN — Farmers in Nebraska and Iowa say they are curbing their use of antibiotics in livestock in response to growing national concern about the proliferation of drug-resistant infections in people.

Researchers say the widespread use of antibiotics has led to the development of germs that are immune to the drugs — germs that could be passed along to humans.

Although the link with human illness remains unclear, the problem is serious: About 65,000 people died from antibiotic-resistant infections in the U.S. last year. Resistant staph infections, for example, spread rapidly in hospitals where sick people are more vulnerable. There also have been outbreaks in prisons, gyms, even on beaches.

While Americans may associate resistant infections with humans' overuse of antibiotics, one study estimated that 84 percent of the drugs go to pigs, cattle and chickens, not only to cure disease, but also to prevent illness and, in some cases, to promote growth.

“Antibiotic-resistant microorganisms generated in the guts of pigs in the Iowa countryside don't stay on the farm,” said Margaret Mellon, the food and environment director of the Union of Concerned Scientists.

“If we're not careful with antibiotics and the programs to administer them, we're going to be in a post-antibiotic era,” said Dr. Thomas Frieden, who was tapped in 2009 to lead the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The three federal agencies given the task of protecting public health — the Food and Drug Administration, the CDC and the U.S. Department of Agriculture — have declared drug-resistant diseases stemming from antibiotic use in animals a “serious emerging concern.”

And FDA deputy commissioner Dr. Joshua Sharfstein told Congress this past summer that farmers need to stop feeding antibiotics to healthy farm animals.

“I know people are really worried about this — we're worried, too,” said Bryan Karwal of Elliott, Iowa, a contract grower and manager involved in the production of nearly 50,000 hogs a year.

Karwal and other farmers and ranchers said the agriculture industry has altered its use of antibiotics during the past 15 years.

“I use them very sparingly. I only use antibiotics when there's a need,” said Bill Tentinger of LeMars, Iowa, who sells about 10,000 hogs a year to Tyson Foods.

But Tentinger and others stressed that antibiotics remain a crucial part of animal husbandry. The farmers said it would be inhumane not to give medicine to an ailing animal.

“The one thing that the American public wants to know is: Is the product that I'm getting safe to eat?” veterinarian Craig Rowles of Carroll, Iowa, told the Associated Press. “I'm telling you that the product that we produce today is the safest, most wholesome product that you could possibly get.”

Although other pork producers strongly disagree, pig farmer Jim Knopik of Fullerton, Neb., said he thinks large-scale confinement practices can foster disease.

He said he bowed out of the hog confinement business about 15 years ago because he couldn't figure out a way to keep his hogs healthy without antibiotics.

“I used to have a confinement barn, but after building that thing and starting to raise hogs in it, we found we had to have our hogs on medication every day just to fight the coughing and the pneumonia and things like that,” he said. “It seemed like I carried a syringe with me more than I did my pliers.”

Knopik and his family now raise antibiotic-free hogs, turkeys and cattle for a much-smaller direct marketing business. He sells only about 60 to 80 pigs a year.

Pork and beef producers' groups say they have established quality assurance programs to train farmers on the proper use of antibiotics, along with disease prevention, hygiene and nutrition.

Most meatpackers require their suppliers to participate in the programs, they said.

“Every packing house has strict standards. It's virtually impossible for animals with antibiotic residue in their system to hit the food chain,” said Drew Gaffney of Anselmo, a rancher who serves as coordinator of the Nebraska Cattlemen's Beef Quality Assurance program. “It's virtually impossible for producers to give antibiotics to their cattle without the consent of a veterinarian. There is no benefit for a producer to abuse antibiotics.”

Galen Erickson, an associate professor of animal science at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln who specializes in cattle nutrition, said antibiotic resistance in humans is a serious problem, but he challenged whether its use in livestock is a contributing factor to widespread resistant infections in humans.

“That's not well-established, in my opinion,” he said. Erickson said instances of humans contracting antibiotic-resistant infections from animals remain rare.

One case, he said, involved a western Nebraska veterinarian's 12-year-old son, who contracted an antibiotic-resistant strain of salmonella in 1998.

Nebraska public health officials identified the strain as identical to that seen in calves treated by the boy's father shortly before the boy got sick.

In that study, reported on in the New England Journal of Medicine in April 2000, NU Medical Center scientist Paul D. Fey and other co-authors concluded that it was “probable” that the use of antimicrobial agents in cattle led to the development of the resistant strain of salmonella subsequently transmitted to the boy.

Tentinger, who's been raising hogs for more than four decades, said attitudes have changed significantly since his early years in the business, when antibiotics were routinely added to feed to help animals grow faster.

“I've got to tell you, in the industry as a whole, anybody who's serious about raising hogs avoids that,” he said. “They're aware of the issues.”

A 2001 study by the Union of Concerned Scientists concluded that about 84 percent of antibiotics consumed per year go to livestock, although the group acknowledged that its estimates of antibiotic use were based only on “educated guesses.” The group also concluded that most of the drugs were used for “non-therapeutic” purposes — added to feed to boost growth, or administered to healthy animals to prevent them from getting sick.

The Animal Health Institute, a trade organization for animal pharmaceutical manufacturers, reports that nearly 28 million pounds of antibiotics and antibacterial ingredients were sold by its members in 2007, a 5 percent increase from 2006, which in turn rose 8 percent from the previous year.

The figures include annual sales of more than 10 million pounds of antibacterial drug products developed for animal production and not related to traditional antibiotics used by humans.

The FDA approved antibiotic use in animals in 1951. The only way to withdraw that approval is through a drug-by-drug process that can take years of study, review and comment. There has been one ban: In 2000, the FDA ordered the poultry medication Baytril off the market. Five years later, after a series of failed appeals, poultry farmers stopped using the drug.

In 2008 the FDA issued its second limit on an antibiotic used in cows, pigs and chickens, citing “the importance of cephalosporin drugs for treating disease in humans.” But the Bush administration — in an FDA note in the federal register — reversed that decision five days before it was going to take effect after protests from drug companies and farm animal trade groups, AP reported.

Cost, consumer demand and plain-old common sense require farmers and ranchers to be prudent in their use of antibiotics, said Sherry Vinton, a member of a five-generation ranch family near Whitman, Neb. The Vintons have a cow-calf operation that involves thousands of cattle.

“It's expensive to treat animals,” she said. “It's not something we use gratuitously or without need. On the other hand, it's a tool you want to have available. Healthy food depends on healthy animals. We want to be able to treat them when necessary. That's just plain humane care.”

Vinton and others cited a number of management techniques that they say help reduce the need for antibiotics. For example, Vinton said, most cattle buyers now insist that calves be vaccinated against disease before weaning so they don't get sick from the stress of leaving their mothers and moving into a feed yard.

Karwal said he uses an “all-in, all-out” management technique, where hogs of about the same age and weight are housed in the same building until they're ready for slaughter. No new hogs, bringing new germs, are added to the group, and they're all removed at once so the building can be cleaned and disinfected before the next group is brought in. The buildings are off-limits to casual visitors — Karwal himself does not enter multiple buildings in the same day.

He said antibiotics are used primarily in response to illness, although the smallest pigs get a dose in their rations during the first four or five days after they are weaned to prevent them from getting sick.

If pigs are sick, medicine is mixed into the water supply and pigs that are not displaying symptoms also are dosed. Individual shots are given if a pig does not improve. Tentinger, who said he instructs his feed supplier and contract growers to keep antibiotics out of the rations, recently experimented with a contract to raise antibiotic-free hogs.

The company he was raising them for refused to let him give them medicine after they got sick with salmonella.

“I about pulled my hair out,” he said. “We had to watch them die. I'm not going to do it again.”

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