Progressive Democrat Issue 62: SCIENCE, HEALTH AND ENVIRONMENT

A major and rising threat to our health is the increase of antibiotic resistant bacteria. This is often caused by misuse of antibiotics. Examples of this are when you are given a prescription for antibiotics and don't complete the course, when someone self-medicates with antibiotics, often at the wrong dose and timing, or when the meat industry uses antibiotics in animal feed. Bacteria that are constantly exposed to antibiotics develop resistance to these drugs. Furthermore, the antibiotic resistance genes, because of a quirk in bacterial genetics, can sometimes jump from one bacterial species to another. When humans get sick from resistant bacteria, the antibiotics prescribed will no longer work. Already, medical research is barely keeping up with the loss of effective antibiotics. For example, the vaunted Cipro, made famous during the Anthrax scare, is now losing its effectiveness due to the rise of antibiotic resistant bacteria.

From the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS):

Antibiotic-resistant bacteria are on the rise. Patients once effectively treated for pneumonia, tuberculosis, or ear infections may now have to try three or more antibiotics before they find one that works. And as more bacterial strains develop resistance, more people will die because effective antibiotics are not identified quickly enough or because the bacteria causing the disease are resistant to all available antibiotics.

Why have bacterial strains become resistant? The short answer is overuse of antibiotics. Physicians and hospitals have overprescribed the drugs, and patients have demanded them—even for illnesses not caused by bacteria. Veterinarians, too, overprescribe drugs to treat sick animals.

It is livestock producers, however, who use the vast majority of antibiotics produced in the United States. An estimated 70 percent of antibiotics and related drugs produced in this country are used for nontherapeutic purposes such as accelerating animal growth and compensating for overcrowded and unsanitary conditions on large-scale confinement facilities known as "factory farms." This translates to about 25 million pounds of antibiotics and related drugs fed every year to livestock for nontherapeutic purposes—almost eight times the amount given to humans to treat disease.

Through lobbying efforts of groups like UCS and some environmental groups, some companies like McDonalds and Chipotle (owned by McDonalds) have already started implementing programs to preferentially buy chicken raised without antibiotics in their chicken feed. Since McDonalds is one of the biggest purchasers of chicken in the nation, his already puts pressure on chicken ranchers to phase out antibiotic use.

This pressure may be paying off. This week, according to USA Today, some of the nation’s largest poultry corporations--Tyson Foods, Gold Kist, Perdue Farms, and Foster Farm--have sharply cut back on their use of antibiotics in the feed of chickens that are not sick. Tyson officials said this reduction in “nontherapeutic” antibiotic use was made possible by improving animals’ living conditions and by breeding hardier chickens.

This leaves only Pilgrim’s Pride, the nation’s #2 chicken producer, still using nontherapeutic antibiotics. We need to do two things to further protect our health. First, we need to urge Wendy's, another of the nation's largest purchasers of chicken meat, to join McDonalds in preferentially purchasing meat raised without nontherapeutic antibiotics. This will be easier for them now that most of the top chicken producers are phasing them out.

Write or call Wendy's urging them to help protect our health:

Wendy's Consumer Relations
Wendy's International, Inc.
4288 W. Dublin-Granville Rd.
Dublin, OH 43017

Phone: (614) 764-3100

Second, we need to directly lobby Pilgrim's Pride to get them to join their competitors in phasing out nontherapeutic antibiotics. You can do this by signing the UCS petition to Pilgrim's Pride and, for a bigger impact, by directly contacting Pilgrim's Pride.

I should note that your own loved ones may be affected by this. Children and the elderly and the immunocompromised are the most vulnerable to bacteria infections and hence are most threatened by antibiotic resistant strains.