|
By Marian Burros
The poultry industry has quietly
begun to bow to the demands of public health and consumer groups by greatly
reducing the antibiotics that are fed to healthy chickens.
Long a mainstay of poultry
farming, antibiotics have been justified as a means of preventing infection
in chickens as well as enhancing growth. Opponents have bitterly criticized
the industry for a strategy that they say contributes to a much larger
public health problem: the growing resistance to antibiotics of disease-causing
bacteria in humans.
Now it appears that with little
fanfare, the industry has begun to acquiesce. Three companies - Tyson
Foods, Perdue Farms and Foster Farms, which produce a third of the chicken
consumed by Americans each year - say they have voluntarily taken most
or all of the antibiotics out of what they feed healthy chickens.
In addition, the industry is
turning away from an antibiotic used to treat sick birds because it is
related to Cipro, the drug used to treat anthrax in humans. Some corporate
consumers, including McDonald's, Wendy's and Popeye's, are now refusing
to buy chicken that has been treated with it.
But despite the overall
decrease in antibiotic use, there is no way for the consumer to know whether
one of these companies' chickens has been treated with antibiotics.
This is especially true of
drugs used to treat sick chickens, like the Cipro-related antibiotic.
Treating a few sick birds requires treating the entire flock, and flocks
often number more than 30,000. The only way for consumers to be certain
the chickens they buy have not been treated with antibiotics is to purchase
those labeled antibiotic-free, or organic.
Farmers are not required
to report antibiotic use in animals.
Many public health advocates
say the use of antibiotics in poultry causes disease germs to become resistant
not only to those drugs but also to the closely related drugs used to
treat human diseases. The theory is that stronger, more drug-resistant
strains of bacteria grow when competing organisms are killed off. Strong
resistance to a drug may cause it and others in its chemical class to
become ineffective for treating some diseases.
Experts say that another significant
factor in the emergence of drug- resistant bacteria is the overuse of
antibiotics in human medicine.
The turnaround on the part
of three major companies is a powerful recognition of public health officials'
longstanding concerns. Foster Farms says it uses no antibiotics at all,
except to treat sick birds. Perdue says it is using only antibiotics that
are not the same as or similar to those used in human medicine. Tyson
says it has cut back on antibiotics that are similar to those used on
humans, and now uses only two when a flock is at risk of disease.
"If they are not using
millions of pounds of antibiotics in chickens, there is that much less
pressure on disease-causing organisms to develop resistance," said
Dr. Margaret Mellon, the director of the food and environment program
of the Union of Concerned Scientists, a public advocacy group. "That
means the antibiotics will work at lower concentrations."
The Union of Concerned Scientists
estimates that 26.6 millions
pounds of antibiotics
are used for animals each year, with only 2 million
pounds used to treat sick animals. These figures are
estimates because farmers can buy many antibiotics without prescriptions.
While some processors have
been reducing such use in healthy chickens, there has been an equally
significant effort to ban a newer class of antibiotics, called fluoroquinolones,
in chickens that are sick. The chicken drug, which is very similar to
Cipro, is called Baytril. Both are manufactured by Bayer A.G.
Even the Food and Drug Administration,
which has done little in the past to curb the use of antibiotics in animals,
has been trying to ban Baytril since October 2000. Cipro is used to treat
not only anthrax but also food-borne illnesses like campylobacteriosis
and salmonellosis.
Walt Riker, a spokesman for
McDonald's, said the company decided a year ago not to serve chickens
that had been treated with fluoroquinolones. "Based on the science
and some of the concerns raised and its limited application, it was easy
to discontinue the use of it," he said.
Foster Farms does not use fluoroquinolones.
Tyson and Perdue still do. Perdue and Foster Farms say fewer than 1 percent
of their chickens are treated with any antibiotics because of illnesses.
After the Food and Drug Administration
gave the poultry industry permission to use fluoroquinolones to treat
chickens in 1995, contrary to advice from the Centers for Disease Control
and Prevention, the increase in bacteria resistance among humans rose
from almost nothing to about 18 percent. The most recent preliminary government
report indicates a reduction in bacterial resistance to about 14 percent,
which may be attributed to a reduction in use as processors and purchasers
turn away from it.
The Food and Drug Administration
says that even though there has been a reduction, the level of resistance
is unacceptable. Among those supporting its call for a ban are the American
College of Preventive Medicine, the American Medical Association and the
American Public Health Association.
But once an animal drug has
been approved, it is very difficult to take off the market against a company's
wishes. One manufacturer, Abbott Laboratories, agreed immediately to withdraw
the product. But Bayer has not and is fighting the proposed ban.
New
York Times February 10, 2002
| 