Use of Antibiotics in Animal
Feed Can Lead to Antibiotic Resistance -The Need for Careful Regulation
of Antibiotic Use
Overview:
Ever since their discovery over fifty years ago, antibiotics
have been used as supplements in animal feed not only as cures for disease
and infection, but also as growth promoting agents. This practice, which
has become common in the production of livestock, effectively obtains these
results, but there are other less obvious consequences that accompany the
use of these antibiotics in livestock. Over sixty percent of all cattle,
sheep, swine, and poultry in the United States are given antibiotics at
some point. Many times these drugs are administered to prevent the chance
that animals in close quarters will transmit diseases, and in these cases
the drugs are given in doses much lower than those given to treat specific
diseases. Using antibiotics in these "subtherapeutic" doses lowers the
cost of raising livestock.
The advantages to this are obvious because the use
of antibiotics leads to healthier and more productive livestock that are
grown at a lower cost, but a problem arises because many of the antibiotics
given to the animals are the same ones that physicians prescribe to their
patients. Widespread use of antibiotics in livestock helps to promote selective
growth of resistant bacterial strains which could possibly cross over to
humans and cause serious problems. Because many of the same drugs are used
in animals and humans, these resistant strains become more deadly as doctors
have fewer options to treat their patients. Use of antibiotics for livestock
must be regulated to ensure that these resistant strains cannot gain a
foothold and become a more prevalent problem.