By Sarah Edmonds TORONTO (Reuters) - Farmers who lace animal feed with
antibiotics to bulk up livestock and prevent infections are creating
drug-resistant bacteria that could cause serious illnesses among humans,
a Canadian medical journal said Tuesday. The report in the Canadian
Medical Association Journal reported that the abuse of antibiotics by
farmers has created mutations of microbes such as salmonella and e. coli
that can be passed on to humans in a number of ways. Infections may from
arise from the beef, pork, lamb and chicken people eat, from farm crops
that suck in surface water contaminated with livestock manure and even
from family cats and dogs who eat contaminated petfood. ``In addition to
medical misuses, inappropriate use of antibiotics in agriculture is a
major contributor to the emergence of antibiotic-resistant bacteria,''
Dr. George Khachatourians of the University of Saskatchewan wrote in the
report. Illnesses already dangerous to humans can become deadly when
conventional antibiotics become ineffective. The smaller number of new
antibiotics coming on to the market means fewer weapons to attack these
bugs once traditional ones fail. Khachatourians called for a global
strategy along the lines of British, Danish and World Health
Organization recommendations to reduce and eventually eliminate the use
of antibiotics for purposes other than the treatment of infection. The
scale of antibiotic use in commercial farming is enormous. Livestock are
given anywhere from 100 to 1,000 times the amount of antibiotics as the
human population. ``The extent of the problem in an agricultural setting
is indicated by the fact that about half of all antibiotics used in the
U.S. are for animal husbandry,'' Khachatourians wrote. ``Only 10 percent
of these drugs are given to treat infectious disease, the rest are given
to promote growth or prevent disease.'' The report said recommended
levels of antibiotics in animal feeds have increased by 10 to 20 times
since the 1950s.
^REUTERS
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