Healthy Skepticism Library item: 1391

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Publication type: news

Kaufman M.
WHO Urges End to Use of Antibiotics for Animal Growth
The Washington Post 2003 Aug 13
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&node=&contentId=A51996-2003Aug12¬Found=true

Full text:

The World Health Organization will recommend today that nations phase out the widespread and controversial use of antibiotic growth promoters in animal feed, saying the move will help preserve the effectiveness of antibiotics for medicine and can be done without significant expense or health consequences to farm animals.

Based on a study of Denmark’s experience following a 1998 voluntary ban on antibiotic growth promoters, WHO concluded that under similar conditions the use of low-dosage antibiotics “for the sole purpose of growth promotion can be discontinued.”

WHO’s findings and recommendation do not require nations to act. But they will add to the growing movement to stop routine use of antibiotics on farms, and to the kind of public pressure that led the McDonald’s fast-food chain to recently tell suppliers to cut back on antibiotic growth promoters.

WHO officials say that about half of the antibiotics used by livestock growers worldwide are low-dose growth promoters, the type that public health experts say are most likely to promote the growth of bacteria that are resistant to antibiotics.

“We have believed for some time that giving animals low dosages of antibiotics throughout their lives to make them grow faster is a bad idea,” said Peter Braam, project leader for the WHO report. “Now we have solid scientific information from Denmark that producers can terminate this practice without negative effects for the animals and growers, and with good effects for the human population.”

Denmark is the world’s largest exporter of pork products and has an industrial-style farming system similar to the American one.

The report, by a team including U.S. public health and agriculture experts, makes clear that there were negative effects from the ban on antibiotic growth promoters — the cost of producing pigs rose by about 1 percent, and the use of antibiotics to treat sick animals increased. But even with that increase, the amount of antibiotics used on Danish farms fell by about 50 percent after the ban went into effect.

The report also found that once growth promoters were dropped, the amount of resistant bacteria in pork and chicken declined “dramatically.” In chicken, 60 percent to 80 percent of birds had bacteria resistant to three widely used antibiotics before the ban; afterward 5 percent to 35 percent of birds had resistant bacteria. The report found a similar decline in bacteria resistant to two antibiotics widely fed to pigs.

The WHO report said there are indications that levels of antibiotic-resistant bacteria in humans decreased, but the data were too limited to make conclusive judgments.

WHO has taken the lead in focusing attention on the potential hazards of antibiotic growth promoters — which speed pigs, poultry and cattle to market but also speed the development of bacteria that are resistant to antibiotics. Many researchers believe that resistant bacteria that grow in spite of low-dosage antibiotic growth promoters are playing a significant role in making related antibiotics less effective for human patients.

But many meat and poultry growers, as well as drug companies that make animal medicines and antibiotic feed additives, say phasing out growth promoters would be costly and counterproductive.

“It just doesn’t make sense to us to focus so much on antibiotic growth promoters on the farm,” said Dan Murphy, vice president of public affairs at the American Meat Institute. “The real hot spot for the development of antibiotic resistance is in the hospital and the doctor’s office, where antibiotics are overused and resistance is clearly growing. What might be coming from the farm is minor in comparison.”

WHO officials acknowledge that antibiotic resistance is being caused by over-prescribing drugs for people as well, but say that the routine and low-dosage use of antibiotics is the least important use of antibiotics and should be curtailed.

Braam of WHO said the results in Denmark appear to be applicable to American farmers, because they operate a similarly intensive form of farming. He said that there was dispute on whether techniques used in Denmark to make up for the loss of growth promoters could be used by large, developing nations such as China, but that he believes they are applicable worldwide. Although WHO has warned before against widespread use of low-dosage antibiotics, Braam said the Danish results made it possible and necessary to make a clearer statement against their use.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has been grappling with the issue for several years and is evaluating both new and established animal antibiotics on the likelihood of increasing resistance to human drugs.

But Richard Carnevale, vice president of regulatory, scientific and international affairs at the Animal Health Institute, which represents makers of animal drugs, said WHO’s approach does not and should not apply in the United States.

“The FDA is a science-based agency, and their job is to look at each of these drugs individually,” he said. “Not all animal drugs are the same or present the same risks. So I think we should stick with our approach to this issue and avoid any broad bans that may be unwise and unnecessary.”

Stephen F. Sundlof, director of the FDA Center for Veterinary Medicine, said the FDA and WHO were “leaning in the same direction,” but they do have differences. He said the FDA is examining each animal antibiotic — whether used to treat sick animals or to promote growth — and deciding which pose the greatest risk to antibiotics for people.

“The FDA’s concern is that a ban on types of products is way too general,” he said. “I don’t think it makes sense to say one kind of usage is bad, when others might be equally bad or worse.”

WHO’s recommendation goes well beyond the steps taken by the McDonald’s fast-food chain in June, when it told its meat suppliers it wanted them to reduce or stop the use of some growth promoters by the end of next year.

McDonald’s policy would prohibit the use of 24 antibiotic growth promoters but would allow low-dose antibiotics that act to prevent disease rather than solely promote growth. The Danish ban is on all low-dosage antibiotics, whatever their purpose. A similar ban will go into effect across the European Union in 2006.

According to the Animal Health Institute, 13 percent to 17 percent of antibiotics used on U.S. farms was for growth promotion. But the Union of Concerned Scientists, an advocacy group, said it had found that about 50 percent of the antibiotic use was in the form of low-dosage growth promoters.