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 The report from the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) says the
widespread practice of giving antibiotics to healthy livestock to
promote growth and prevent disease among animals is making the drugs
ineffective when they are needed to treat infections in people.
“The antibiotics that are fed to the animals lead to the development
of antibiotic resistant bacteria in the animal,” study co-author Dr.
Theoklis Zaoutis of the University of Pennsylvania and the
Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia said by email. “These bacteria
can then be spread to other animals, the environment and to humans.”
More than two million Americans become ill with antibiotic-resistant
infections each year, and 23,000 die as a result, Zaoutis and
co-author Dr. Jerome Paulson report in the journal Pediatrics.
Paulson formerly chaired the executive committee of the AAP’s
Council on Environmental Health,
They estimate that national costs to the U.S. healthcare system
attributable to antibiotic resistant infections run from $21 billion
to $34 billion annually.
Infants and children are affected by antibiotic-resistant bacteria
in the food supply, direct contact with animals and exposure in the
environment, the researchers report.
For most infections, incidence was highest among children under age
five, according to data the researchers cited from Center for
Disease Control and Prevention's Foodborne Diseases Active
Surveillance Network.
While people can’t get antibiotics without a prescription, animals
can, the researchers point out.
Pediatricians and parents can help combat antibiotic resistance by
avoiding use of antibiotics to treat colds or other viral illnesses.
Parents and other consumers may also help discourage the use of
antibiotics in livestock feed by choosing to buy only organic
products or foods labeled as “raised without antibiotics,” said
Urvashi Rangan, executive director of the Consumer Reports Food
Safety and Sustainability Center.
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“Consuming foods from animals produced without the routine use of
antibiotics is one important step in reducing personal risk; so is
cooking our foods thoroughly,” Rangan, who wasn’t involved in the
report, said by email.
But the long-term solution to antibiotic resistance may require
changes in the way we produce animals for food, including stopping
the use of antibiotics and other drugs in healthy animals and also
implementing better drug-free hygiene and management practices to
curb disease risk on farms, Rangan added.
Even purchasing organic doesn’t guarantee that there will not be
resistant bacteria present, noted Timothy Landers, an antibiotics
researcher at Ohio State University in Columbus.
“From a farmer’s perspective, the use of antibiotics helps ensure
that food is safe, nutritious and affordable,” Landers, who wasn’t
involved in the study, said by email. “What we have lacked is a
coordinated, integrated approach to antibiotic resistance including
experts on human health, food production animal health and the
environment.”
SOURCE: http://bit.ly/1RZfNsj Pediatrics, online November 16, 2015.
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