The FDA Releases the Amount of Antibiotics Used in Factory Farmed Livestock and It's a Ton

According to a report found on Grist, for the first time ever the FDA has exposed the amount of antibiotics used both to fatten up factory farmed animals and to keep them from getting sick, resulting from the inhumane treatment and filthy conditions in which they often live. The agency is now requiring meat producers to report on antibiotic use so we now have a baseline for measuring progress.

The report says that in 2009 29 million pounds of antibiotics were given to our nation's livestock. While in 2001 the Union of Concerned Scientists put the number at 24.6 million and in 2000 the Animal Health Institute put it at 17.8 million pounds, according to Grist.

"The overuse of antibiotics in animal agriculture is an enormous risk to public health and should be stopped. The FDA report may be short and issued without comment, but it is a sign that the FDA is taking steps to address this serious public health problem," Marion Nestle, professor of Nutrition, Food Studies, and Public Health at New York University wrote in The Atlantic.

One of the risks is an overall antibiotic resistance, evident in an article I wrote about these antibiotic resistant superbugs over at TreeHugger. This has become quite a problem in Britain where scientists are noticing more and more strains of drug resistant e coli and salmonella. One superbug, ESBL E.coli, was first found at a British farm in 2008 and has now made its way to 37 percent of the country's dairy farms. Other salmonella superbugs have been found in pigs in Britain.

According to the Federal Register:

Misuse and overuse of antimicrobial drugs creates selective evolutionary pressure that enables antimicrobial resistant bacteria to increase in numbers more rapidly than antimicrobial susceptible bacteria and thus increases the opportunity for individuals to become infected by resistant bacteria. Because antimicrobial drug use contributes to the emergence of drug resistant organisms, these important drugs must be used judiciously in both animal and human medicine to slow the development of resistance. Using these drugs judiciously means that unnecessary or inappropriate use should be avoided.

Bottom line--this could be a turning point because it shows that the FDA is starting to see the connection between the overuse of antibiotics and the spread of drug resistant superbugs. Reducing the use of antibiotics in order to treat animals that are actually sick rather than daily treatments to rapidly fatten livestock up or reduce the disease repercussions of inhumane treatment would be a major step to quell what every expert now agrees is a serious public health issue.

Like this? Stay up-to-date on all my food issues and get great holistic health info by following me on Twitter.