Change Your World Week Fall 2021 (Archived)

 “A 2014 study by the Review of Antimicrobial Resistance, convened by the UK Prime Minister, estimates that by 2050, if nothing is done to curb antibiotic misuse, resistant bacteria will kill 10 million people a year — more than are killed by cancer today — and will cost the global economy $60 trillion to $100 trillion (Antibiotics in our food system, 2020)."  The issue, ladies and gentleman, is that our blind misuse of modern antibiotics is slowly, but surely, beginning to show promise of a extremely negative outcome.  

In 2014, 266.1 million courses of antibiotics were prescribed to humans, and in 2016 nearly one-third of prescriptions were found to be unnecessary.  “In September 2013, the CDC released a new report called Antibiotic Resistance Threats in the United States. According to the report, 50 percent of all the antibiotics prescribed for people are not needed or are not optimally effective.”  According to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), 80 percent of the total antibiotic use in the U.S. is in agriculture, with pigs and poultry receiving five to 10 times more antibiotics than cows and sheep (Antibiotics in our food system, 2020).  Drug resistant genes can be passed on into human pathogens via antigenic shift and this overuse and abuse of antibiotics could potentially be a very serious problem in the near future as a species.

We have reached a point in history, where medicine has once again gone to battle with the microorganisms that inhabit this world, and are beginning to lose.  Antibiotic resistant bacteria, are very much a serious problem today.  And it all can be prevented, or if nothing else, curbed long enough to once again give science the head start it needs to keep us safe and healthy.

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According to the CDC in 2021:

"Any time antibiotics are used, in people and animals, they can contribute to the development of antibiotic resistance. Antibiotic use in food animals can help treat bacterial diseases in animals. However, to slow the spread of antibiotic resistance, antibiotics should only be used when necessary (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2021)."

The solution from preventing mass waves of antibiotic resistant bacteria from becoming overwhelming is fairly simply.  Limit the use of them.  The WHO (World Health Organization) has suggested multiple regulatory strategies to help diminish the arrival of antibiotic resistant strains of bacteria: “1) eliminating the use of antibiotics as growth promoters in food animals; 2) requiring that antibiotics be administered to animals only when prescribed by a veterinarian; and 3) requiring the antibiotics identified as critically important in human medicine-especially fluoroquinolones and third-and fourth-generation cephalosporins -only be used in food animals when their use is justified (Greer, 2016).”

In addition to limiting the amount of antibiotics used in livestock, it also fair to say that the use of them in people must be diminished as well.  In 2016, nearly one third of antibiotic prescriptions were deemed to be unnecessary.  

Despite the ongoing evidence that supports the misuse and danger of extensive antibiotics use, there are some benefits to using them.  Some diseases such as lamb dysentery, and black leg of cattle disease are easily treatable and if not treated cause great loss to livestock numbers and it is much more cost effective to treat them instead of euthanize them. Bovine pleuropneumonia, and foot-and-mouth disease “are so devastating that large-scale, expensive efforts are justified to eradicate them from livestock populations and then protect livestock from their reintroduction (Phillips et al.,2003).”  Furthermore, according to Phillips and others (2003), there are many diseases that are absolutely devastating to livestock and vaccine development has been mostly disappointing.  Some of the bacteria that cause these devastating diseases include: Streptococcus suis,Mannheimia (Pasteurella) haemolytica, Bordetella bronchiseptica, Actinobacillus pleuropneumoniae, Escherichia coli and Haemophilus somnus.  For bacterial diseases which have not responded to alternative measures, “control of subclinical disease and therapeutic intervention for recognized clinical disease using antimicrobials is frequently the only practical option. When disease-prevention measures fail, therapy is indicated from both economic and humane perspectives. Antibiotic use in animal agriculture results in healthier animals, and we believe that the health-promoting effects, from which at least some of the growth-promoting effects arise, deserve more attention” (Phillips et al., 2003).  In addition to morale and scientific benefits, there is always going to be a cost benefit to using antibiotics in livestock.  Antibiotics increase growth, which increases yield, which increases profits.

Prior, "Representative Louise Slaughter (D-NY), the only microbiologist in Congress,  introduced the Preservation of Antibiotics for Medical Treatment Act (PAMTA) several times in the House of Representatives, most recently in the 2015-2016 session.  First introduced in 1999, the bill would phase out the non-therapeutic use of eight classes of medically important antibiotics and restrict the use of many other antibiotics in animal feed, while allowing the use of these drugs for treating sick animals. The prior time it was introduced, the bill had 78 Congressional cosponsors and was endorsed by 450 health, farming, food safety, religious, labor and consumer advocate groups. Fifty cities around the country have passed resolutions encouraging the passage of PAMTA and its Senate corollary, the Prevention of Antibiotic Resistance Act. Nonetheless, the bills have never made it out of committee (Antibiotics in our food system, 2020)."

Dorothy Louise Slaughter unfortunately passed away in 2018, and never was able to see her bill come to fruition.  The bill ultimately outlined a way for us as a society to cut down on antibiotic use.  However, it has not seen the congressional floor since 2016.  However, the ideas are still out there for us to learn, and to take action.  Imagine if we were able to take this bill of hers and finally start digging ourselves out of the hole that is antibiotic resistant bacteria.  It is proposed that if we do not do something now, that by 2050 we will be seeing an increase in antibiotic resistant bacteria and a death toll of 10 million people a year.  That is the current death total of Covid-19 (754,000) multiplied by 13, every year.  I ask all of you, write your congressional representatives, request a copy of the PAMTA bill, start a petition, a funding campaign for lobbying the bill, request action from your local government.  Anything you do helps, even just the simple act of learning these issues is better than being blind to them.  

You may check the status of the PAMTA bill here: PAMTA Bill

Antibiotics in our food system. FoodPrint. (2020, February 14). Retrieved October 26, 2021, from https://foodprint.org/issues/antibiotics-in-our-food-system/. 

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2021, June 14). Food and Food Animals. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Retrieved October 26, 2021, from https://www.cdc.gov/drugresistance/food.html. 

Greer, K. (2016). Antibiotic Use in U.S Livestock Production. Nova Science Publishers, Inc.

Phillips, I., Casewell, M., Cox, T., Groot, B. D., Friis, C., Jones, R., Nightingale, C., Preston, R., & Waddell, J. (2003). Does the use of antibiotics in food animals pose a risk to human health? A critical review of published data. Journal of Antimicrobial Chemotherapy, 53(1), 28–52. https://doi.org/10.1093/jac/dkg483 

Schmidt, C. W. (2002). Antibiotic Resistance in Livestock: More at Stake than Steak., 110(7), 396–402. https://doi.org/10.1289/ehp.110-a396.

World Health Organization. (2020, July 31). Antibiotic resistance. World Health Organization. Retrieved October 26, 2021, from https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/antibiotic-resistance.