Antibiotic Resistance

Antibiotics are one of the most important tools in modern medicine. These drugs can mean the difference between life and death when humans contract a bacterial infection—from staph to salmonella to bacterial pneumonia. But overuse and misuse of these drugs is making bacteria more quickly resistant to essential antibiotics.

Antibiotic resistance complicates medical treatment, and frequently results in longer and more serious illness, and even death in some instances. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), 99,000 people die each year in the United States of a hospital-acquired infectious disease. Children, the elderly and the chronically ill are particularly vulnerable to antibiotic-resistant infections. In 1998, the Institute of Medicine estimated that antibiotic resistance generated at least $4 billion to $5 billion per year in extra costs to the U.S. health care system. More recently, researchers with the Alliance for the Prudent Use of Antibiotics and Cook County Hospital in Chicago estimated that this number has grown to $16.6 billion to $26 billion per year. For these reasons, the CDC has declared that antibiotic resistance is among its top concerns.

The Causes of Antibiotic Resistance

Overuse and misuse of antibiotics are main causes of the increasing prevalence of antibiotic resistance among bacteria. Antibiotics are misused by consumers when prescriptions are not fully followed (thus failing to kill bacteria). In other cases, people with viral infections such as the cold and the flu incorrectly believe that an antibiotic will help. In fact, antibiotics do not work against viral infections. Finally, certain industrial farming practices lead to overuse of antibiotics, as described below.

 

The Link to Food Animal Production

In human health care, antibiotic use is generally confined to the treatment of illness. In contrast, antibiotics often are used on industrial farms not only to treat sick animals but also to offset crowding and poor sanitation, as well as to spur animal growth. In fact, up to 70 percent of all antibiotics sold in the U.S. are given to healthy food animals. The American Medical Association, American Academy of Pediatrics, American Public Health Association, Infectious Diseases Society of America and other leading medical groups all warn that the routine use of antibiotics in food animals presents a serious and growing threat to human health because it creates new strains of dangerous antibiotic-resistant bacteria.

More than 25 million pounds of antibiotics a year are used as a non-therapeutic treatment to artificially speed up the growth of food animals and to compensate for the effects of unsanitary conditions on the farm. This makes the U.S. one of the biggest users of antibiotics in food animal production in the world. Most of the antibiotics used on farms in the U.S. are obtained and used without the consultation of a veterinarian. The lack of oversight, coupled with the magnitude of administration of antibiotics for non-therapeutic purposes, has potentially irreversible serious consequences for human health.