Antibiotics should not be used as growth promoters in livestock.

The drugs are routinely added to animal feed to make livestock grow faster and healthier, and administered preventatively. The problem, however, goes well beyond agriculture and industry standards.

The use of more and more antibiotics in healthy animals causes germs to mutate and become drug-resistant. The new bacteria poses a threat to people who eat contaminated food or come in contact with water fouled by animal waste.

Sen. Olympia Snowe has proposed legislation to curtail the use of nontherapeutic antibiotics. Her legislation, co-sponsored by Sen. Edward Kennedy, would require the Food and Drug Administration to limit the use of eight classes of antibiotics in animals; help farmers recoup loses during the change; encourage university research on the topic; and require the makers of animal drugs and feed that contain the drugs to make records of their sales quantities available to the Centers for Disease Control.

The World Health Organization, which supports a ban on the use of antibiotics in healthy animals, reports that 14,000 Americans die every year from drug-resistant infections. One of the leading factors in the birth of drug-resistant bacteria is the overuse of antibiotics.

Antibiotics kill bacteria. But when the drugs are used incorrectly, some bacteria can survive and develop an immunity to treatment. Even when the drugs work, there are a small number of bacteria that are immune. These germs face less competition for survival and pass on their resistance.

Drug makers argue that human infections are more likely caused by the overuse of antibiotics in people. Antibiotics are only useful against bacteria, but parents and patients alike have fallen into the unhealthy habit of demanding the medicine for virus-caused ailments, like flu and colds, on which the drugs don’t work. There are signs that trend is changing.

According to a study by Harvard Medical School, the number of prescriptions for antibiotics in the United States is dropping. For some age groups, the reduction has been by as much as 39 percent.

The overuse of antibiotics threatens the effectiveness of our germ-fighting medicines. According to the FDA, about 70 percent of bacteria that cause infections are resistant to at least one of the drugs most commonly used for treatment, and some organisms are resistant to all approved antibiotics and must be treated with experimental drugs.

Already, drug effectiveness is suffering. Powerful antibiotics such as doxycycline and Cipro, which became famous as a treatment for anthrax, are encountering bugs they can’t kill.

Almost all of the staphylococcus infections in this country are resistant to penicillin and many are unaffected by newer drugs.

In 1998, Denmark – which has large-scale, industrialized farms like many of those in the United States – moved to ban antibiotic growth promoters. A study of that country’s experiences should give the agricultural industry affirmation that it can prosper after a similar ban here.

The change was not without some cost increases, but the level of resistant bacteria dropped in chickens and pigs.

Protecting the effectiveness of antibiotics is in everyone’s interest. Congress should move to reduce the industrial uses of these important medicines.

At home we have a role, too. When prescribed an antibiotic, follow the directions and take all of the dosage, and don’t demand the medicine if a doctor says you don’t need it.


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