Farm Animals Get 80 Percent of Antibiotics Sold in U.S.

[Brian Siebenschuh]

Obviously not specific to dining in Jacksonville, but the ridiculous state of our food supply is something I'm always astounded by, and the dining section has been a little, eh, boring lately.  Perhaps this will draw some opinions :-)

Should the vast majority of the animals we consume for food be sick?

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2010/12/news-update-farm-animals-get-80-of-antibiotics-sold-in-us/

Two weeks ago, I broke the news of a new FDA report that estimated for the first time the amount of antibiotics sold in the United States every year for use in agriculture: 28.8 million pounds.

That long-awaited report didn’t answer a crucial question: What volume of antibiotics are sold in the United States each year for human use. It’s a crucial question because, in answer to concerns about antibiotic resistance arising on farms, the answer has always been that human medicine is equally culpable because it uses similar volumes of antibiotics.

The only research that has attempted to answer that question is contained in a decade-old report by the Union of Concerned Scientists that put the proportion of antibiotics going to animals at 70 percent of the U.S. total.

That UCS report and estimate are a decade old not because no one has cared about the topic, but because accurate updated figures have been so hard to get. So we owe a special holiday thank-you to the researchers at the Center for a Livable Future, who decided the release of the FDA report justified another attempt to get the numbers straight. They succeeded.

The proportion of antibiotics sold in the United States each year that go to animals turns out to be not 70 percent, but rather 80 percent. Here’s CLF’s Ralph Loglisci, who got the confirmatory numbers from the FDA:

    In accordance with a 2008 amendment to the Animal Drug User Fee Act, for the first time the FDA released last week an annual amount of antimicrobial drugs sold and distributed for use in food animals. The grand total for 2009 is 13.1 million kilograms or 28.8 million pounds. I … contacted the FDA for an estimate of the volume of antibiotics sold for human use in 2009. This is what a spokesperson told me:

    “Our Office of Surveillance and Epidemiology just finished an analysis based on IMS Health data. Sales data in kilograms sold for selected antibacterial drugs were obtained as a surrogate of human antibacterial drug use in the U.S. market. Approximately 3.3 million kilograms of antibacterial drugs were sold in year 2009. OSE states that all data in this analysis have been cleared for public use by IMS Health, IMS National Sales Perspectivesâ,,¢.”

    3.3 million kilograms is a little over 7 million pounds. As far as I can determine, this is the first time the FDA has made data on estimates of human usage public.

At its blog, CLF lays out the math for each major drug class as sold for animal use and human use, with a long discussion of the significance of the different drug classes. Here’s the CLF table summing up the math, but please go over to CLF’s blog for its discussion.

Most important to note: Most of the drugs used in animal agriculture and in human medicine are functionally identical. That’s one reason why the overuse of antibiotics in animals is such a concern: When organisms become resistant on the farm to drugs used on livestock, they are becoming resistant to the exact same drugs used in humans. (One major drug category used in animals, ionophores, do not have a direct human analog. But use of them on farms is still a concern, because resistance factors can move freely between species of bacteria. That’s a discussion for another day.)

Loglisci’s conclusion is also worth underlining:

    The next battle, which industry has already begun, is defining what non-therapeutic use will constitute. Producers are already claiming that the use of antibiotics for growth promotion has decreased, maintaining current low-dose usage is aimed at disease prevention. Regardless, all low-dose usage of antibiotics can lead to a significant increase in antibiotic resistance.

[JeffreyS]

So gross.  You are now considered radical if you want to eat things that have eaten well themselves.   Feed lot cows do not eat grass and chickens live in blacked out barns in their own filth, so bloated on hormones they have grown to the point they can't even walk more than a few steps.

[uptowngirl]

One thing that does have to do with Jacksonville specifically is city ordinances around keeping "live stock". I am not saying anyone should have a cow lot nextdoor to you, but four or five hens, maybe a goat or two is a nice start. Community Gardens, Orchards, or even mini animal lots would be a sustainable way to produce your own quality food, and extra. I have made a point of helping my children learn where their food comes from (HINT: it is not a shelf or case at Publix!). 

[JeffreyS]

Great suggestions and I know you pointed out hens but lets make sure people know. NO ROOSTERS please.

[Singejoufflue]

Where in the urban core does someone have sufficient property to maintain 4-5 hens and a couple of goats?  I'm not sure people realize the amount of land just a chicken needs to roam around and eat grass, let alone goats.  Unless you are talking about grain-fed and caged???

[uptowngirl]

Do you live in the core? These are pretty big lots, I guess if by caged in you mean fenced in,then yes. Some of our lots are 200ft deep and provide plenty of space for chickens or goats. Think smaller scale, there are Bantam chickens which are smaller than cats but depending on the type are great layers (and like a cornish hen if you choose to eat them), or Pygmy goats, which give enough milk to drink or make cheese (and again if you eat meat they can provide sufficient food). There are also rabbits or ducks. Some people may not know, but up until about 40 yrs ago most families kept chickens, goats, a Thanksgiving turkey, and/or rabbits in their back yards.They also raised most of their own veggies, and had fresh milk delivered daily from right outside their town.

Today, if you do not pay close attention to the packet of seeds you are purchasing...it will be the only crop you get out of those seeds as most seeds are now hybrids. Buy heirloom seeds and you can keep a crop going forever off that one purchase.

There are several good books out there about homesteading on an urban lot (less than a .25 acre). On a typical Springfield sized lot you could have three veggie plots, eight fruit trees (spend the extra money and make one an olive tree!), a nut tree (they get HUGE, so  plan accordingly), four-six chickens (let them run around the gardens and orchard and scratch for worms, bugs and they love termites, and poop), and perhaps even a goat or two (which we do not have, but is certainly possible). We decided growing our own food was more important than a pool,or guest house.You WOULD have to give up that big green lawn, but you should be giving that up already, we have plenty of parks and vacant lots to play on/in.

[Singejoufflue]

My parents' house is on a .25 acre lot, and a goat could clear out their backyard in a weeks time...pygmy or otherwise.  Hence, my statement about grain-fed and "caged".  Grain-fed animals do not produce the quality that a grass fed animal does.  Nor the volume when they aren't given sufficient area to roam.  But certainly, it can be done on a .25 acre. Vegetables on the other hand don't need to get up and stretch their legs...

BTW, I am aware of the family garden/farm...my summers in Alabama were spent with hogs, chickens and 2 acres of vegetables, pecan trees, fig trees, etc.  My summers in NC were spent with goats, chickens and cattle. 

[finehoe]

Producers are...claiming that the use of antibiotics...is aimed at disease prevention.

Of course what they conveniently leave out is that if the animals weren't crammed together in pens so tiny that they can barely move, standing in their own waste, the problem of disease wouldn't be such an issue.

We look back now at slavery, child labor and other such things in the past and wonder how on earth people couldn't recognize how wrong these things are.  In the future, people will look back at our factory farms and experience the same bewilderment.

[ChriswUfGator]

Do you live in the core? These are pretty big lots, I guess if by caged in you mean fenced in,then yes. Some of our lots are 200ft deep and provide plenty of space for chickens or goats. Think smaller scale, there are Bantam chickens which are smaller than cats but depending on the type are great layers (and like a cornish hen if you choose to eat them), or Pygmy goats, which give enough milk to drink or make cheese (and again if you eat meat they can provide sufficient food). There are also rabbits or ducks. Some people may not know, but up until about 40 yrs ago most families kept chickens, goats, a Thanksgiving turkey, and/or rabbits in their back yards.They also raised most of their own veggies, and had fresh milk delivered daily from right outside their town.

Today, if you do not pay close attention to the packet of seeds you are purchasing...it will be the only crop you get out of those seeds as most seeds are now hybrids. Buy heirloom seeds and you can keep a crop going forever off that one purchase.

There are several good books out there about homesteading on an urban lot (less than a .25 acre). On a typical Springfield sized lot you could have three veggie plots, eight fruit trees (spend the extra money and make one an olive tree!), a nut tree (they get HUGE, so  plan accordingly), four-six chickens (let them run around the gardens and orchard and scratch for worms, bugs and they love termites, and poop), and perhaps even a goat or two (which we do not have, but is certainly possible). We decided growing our own food was more important than a pool,or guest house.You WOULD have to give up that big green lawn, but you should be giving that up already, we have plenty of parks and vacant lots to play on/in.

Sorry I am not that into gardening so this is the first I've heard of this.

They intentionally breed seeds to be one-time-use? I guess that makes you have to buy more seeds instead of using the seeds the plant produces? What a scam. This is exactly what is wrong with American business these days.

[finehoe]

ChriswUfGator, do a search using "Monsanto" and "seeds".  Pretty eye-opening stuff.

Here's but one example:  http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2008/05/monsanto200805

[JeffreyS]

If you are doing research on "Monsanto" make sure you can shower afterward you will not feel clean about them existing in this country.   

[Singejoufflue]

If you are doing research on "Monsanto" make sure you can shower afterward you will not feel clean about them existing in this country.   

...or in our government.  Chris, watch Food, Inc.  It's appalling.

[uptowngirl]

ChriswUfGator, do a search using "Monsanto" and "seeds".  Pretty eye-opening stuff.

Here's but one example:  http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2008/05/monsanto200805

+1000

It is shocking what we are "buying" at the store, and even more shocking what is happening to our family farmers. If one hybrid seed blows into a non using farmers field they can and are sued and usually lose everything.

[Dog Walker]

Monsanto is also one of the primary movers behind the huge and ridiculous subsidies on corn ethanol.  Who do you think sells the seed corn?

If corporations are individual "persons" as the Supreme Court has ruled, then some of them can be sociopathic personalities too.

[ChriswUfGator]

I just read that vanity fair article on Monsanto and their untested milk hormone package. When farmers started putting "hormone free" on their cartons they sued them and tried to have the rules changed so they couldn't do anymore, claiming it defamed their brand. Wow.