February 17, 2002 Facing criticism that the use of antibiotics in chicken feed actually was
allowing disease- causing bacteria in humans to develop a resistance to these same antibiotics
major poultry producers in the US slowly have begun adjusting their chickens' diets. While it
long has been believed that antibiotics in chicken feed resulted in healthier, larger
chickens, Tyson Foods, Perdue Farms and Foster Farms have all begun taking most or all
antibiotics out of their chicken feed. Furthermore, the poultry producers are not using a
specific antibiotic used to treat sick birds because it is related to Cipro, which is used to
treat anthrax in humans.

While fear of anthrax has not been high on radar screens in recent years, fears of terrorist attacks on the food supply have made manufacturers and retailers highly sensitive to anything that might impact effective treatment of the disease. Some corporate consumers, including McDonald's, Wendy's and Popeye's, reportedly are refusing to buy chickens that have been fed or treated with antibiotics. SupermarketGuru.com believes that this is a good move on the part of manufacturers; concerns of consumers about any sorts of antibiotics that might result in "super germs" almost impervious to treatment are greater and more relevant than ever. From the consumer perspective, it is accurate to say that the general population just wants to get rid antibiotics in food, soaps, etc., and that they don't even want to deal with the discussion. Just get rid of them and be done with it.

That's pretty much the way things are going, because retailers, restaurants and manufacturers largely have been mum about this significant shift in approach. In this case, however, retailers and
manufacturers may not want to follow the consumer's lead, because lack of communication about
important health issues like these is usually not the right move. Eventually, something
happens -- and then consumers say things like, "Why didn't you tell me?" Looking back at the
consumer and saying, in the immortal words of Jack Nicholson, "You want the truth? You can't
handle the truth!" will not engender much trust. The problem isn't communicating about issues.
It is the fact that most retailers and manufacturers don't communicate with consumers about
issue on a regular, credible basis. Communication becomes reactive the problems, and often
defensive. Instead, communication needs to be open, credible, and routine.

By making it part of the everyday conduct of business, this communication will create business-to-consumer relationships that are equally honest and business-as-usual. Besides, it makes sense for retailers and manufacturers to stay in front of issues like these. While there have been
reductions in the use of antibiotics in feed, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA)
suggests that the level of resistance to bacteria caused by overuse of antibiotics is
unacceptable. An outright ban may be in the works, and it is entirely possible that politics
could enter the fray. If that happens, retailers and manufacturers better make sure they are
not only on the right side of the issue, but that they have practiced full disclosure and
cannot be criticized for hidden or deceptive practices. Now read how the same data appeared in
Time Magazine, under "Medications and Prevention How To Stay Healthy In 2002." http://www.time com/time/covers/1101020121/antibiotics.html

is creating dangerously resistant germs By Christine Gorman It's the sort of thing any good
poultry farmer notices right away: a few of the birds in a so-called grow-out building have
started snickering ­ the chicken equivalent of coughing. A respiratory infection, if that's
what they have, could spread to the 20,000 other birds in the chicken house in a matter of
days. The vet recommends the antibiotic enrofloxacin ­ the animal version of Cipro. Since it's
not practical to treat the birds individually, the farmer pours a 5-gal. jug of the drug into
the flock's drinking water. Five days later the birds are doing fine. Disaster has been
averted. Or has it? While enrofloxacin kills the type of bacteria that sickened the chickens,
it doesn't quite eliminate a different strain, called Campylobacter, that lives in the
intestine.

The surviving germs, which don't cause any poultry diseases, quickly multiply and spread the genes that helped them fend off the antibiotic. Six weeks later, when the broilers are carved up at the slaughterhouse, resistant bacteria spill out everywhere. Even with the best sanitary controls, some campylobacter is shrink-wrapped along with the thighs, breasts and drumsticks that are delivered to your kitchen counter. That's where the real trouble begins. Campylobacter is a major cause of food poisoning in humans. Less than diligent hand washing or improperly cooked meat could park you on the toilet for the next few days. And if you're sick enough to need medical treatment, you might be out of luck.

Chicken Cipro is so closely related to human Cipro that any germ that has become resistant to the animal drug can shrug off the human one just as easily. Before 1996, when enrofloxacin was approved in the U.S. for use in poultry, the number of Campylobacter infections in people that were resistant to Cipro and its chemical cousins was negligible. By 1999, it had jumped to 18% ­ a clear sign, many researchers argue, that at least part of the increase is directly tied to the use
of antibiotics on poultry farms. Welcome to the harrowing world of antibiotic resistance,
where drugs that once conquered everything from pneumonia to tuberculosis are rapidly losing
their punch. Chicken Cipro is only the latest example of how humans are burning their
pharmacological bridges. Feed-lot operators are dosing their livestock with antibiotics to
keep them healthy under stressful growing conditions. Parents are demanding the most powerful
broad-spectrum agents, often by brand name, for their children's upper-respiratory infections.

Consumers are snapping up cutting boards, dishwashing soap and baby toys laced with
antibacterial compounds, hoping to make their homes perfectly sterile and safe. Doctors have
long understood that the indiscriminate use of antibiotics usually backfires, selecting for
germs that are tough to kill. But no one was prepared for how easily resistance could spread
even when the drugs were used in what was thought of as appropriate treatment. You may be
among those who do not believe that some strains of bacteria are able to transfer DNA . Well,
here’s how it was printed up in Time magazine . .

The problem is that bacteria share genetic information much more readily than anyone thought. Individual cells ­ often from different species ­ routinely exchange tiny loops of dna called plasmids. They will even pick up snippets of DNA from dead bacteria or viruses. Once a strain of bacteria survives destruction by antibiotics, chances are it will eventually pass on the genes for resistance to other germs. "It's a numbers game," says Dr. Stuart Levy, a Tufts researcher and author of The
Antibiotic Paradox. And because they live everywhere and reproduce quickly, bacteria have the
upper hand. It doesn't help matters that many Americans have come to think of antibiotics as
tools for prevention.

Patients will often ask for the drugs to keep their colds from turning into sinus infections, even though antibiotics have no effect on the viruses that cause colds in the first place. What's harder to evaluate is the treatment of something like a middle-ear infection, which is indeed caused by several different types of bacteria, including Pneumococcus. Left alone, a handful of these infections could lead to permanent hearing loss.

And yet their treatment has, in just the past 10 years in the U.S., boosted the prevalence of
penicillin-resistant pneumococci to more than 20%. No one yet advocates allowing all bacterial
infections to run their course. But don't be surprised if your doctor takes more of a wait-
and-see approach with your next case of flu (which, like a cold, is caused by viruses).
Hospitals are also learning how to vary the drugs they give their patients to diminish the
chances of selecting for ever more resistant germs. Relief may soon be on the way. Thanks to
advances in the new science of genomics, researchers have started to scour bacterial DNA for
new and possibly better targets for drug development. The goal is to produce a compound that
works so differently from today's antibiotics that germs won't know how to start developing
resistance.

Other research has produced drugs that help restore penicillin's ability to clobber resistant germs, provided the compounds are given in combination. In the meantime, the FDA is so concerned about the possibility of losing Cipro and similar drugs that it has asked pharmaceutical companies to stop selling them to poultry farmers. Bayer, which manufactures both Cipro and enrofloxacin, is contesting the idea, arguing that resistance levels have stabilized and can be managed. The question remains: How much resistance are you willing to live with? Most infections you get that are drug resistant came to you drug resistant," Levy says.

You can do your part to halt their spread by not taking antibiotics unnecessarily and following a doctor's orders when they are prescribed. Saving pills for later, so you don't have to get a new prescription, is definitely a bad idea. "We'll be in this business for a long time to come," says Dr. Stephen Lory, professor of microbiology and molecular genetics at Harvard Medical School. "We will come up with something; bacteria will become resistant. We'll come up with something new. It's the kind of contest where no matter how hard you fight, the best you can hope for is a draw. And now . . . the rest of the story, from the report . . . It Ain't Chicken Feed, Agribusiness, Antibiotics, and Public Health in Maryland By Sean Dobson and Carl Kandutsch Progressive Maryland Education Fund (footnotes included on website at . . )
http://www.progressivemaryland org/research/election/Reports/2001/CaseStudyPoultry.pdf

According to the CDC, in more than one-third of the salmonella-poisoning cases in 1997, the
bacteria were resistant to five antibiotics used to treat the disease. Moreover, staph bacteria, which cause skin, blood, heart valve, and bone infections that can lead to septic shock and death, are becoming increasingly resistant to the chief antibiotic that has been used to treat them, methicillin. From 1975 to 1991, the incidence of methicillin-resistant staph bacteria in U.S. hospitals increased from 2.4 percent to 29 percent.2 The CDC has concluded that antimicrobial use in food animals is the dominant source of antibiotic resistance among food-borne pathogens in the United States. The American Medical Association recently adopted a resolution (AMA Resolution #508) calling for a ban on such use.

The scope of the public health issue at stake is amply demonstrated by the sheer volume of antibiotics used for animal growth. The Union of Concerned Scientists estimates that livestock producers in the United States use 24.6 million pounds of antimicrobials in the absence of disease for nontherapeutic purposes; approximately 10.5 million pounds in poultry, 10.3 million pounds in
hogs, and 3.7 million pounds in cattle. This figure represents a dramatic increase in the
nontherapeutic use of antimicrobials for animal growth since the mid-1980s, when about 16.1
million pounds were so used. This increase has been driven primarily by the poultry industry,
which increased its use of antibiotics by an astounding 307 percent over the last fifteen
years.(3) Maryland’s Eastern Shore is one of the largest poultry producing areas in the United
States.

According to Delmarva Poultry Industry, Inc., during year 2000 Maryland produced 283.3
million broilers, ranking seventh among poultry-producing states. The major farms in Maryland
include Tyson Foods, Inc. (number 1 in the nation), Perdue Farms, Inc. (number 4), Mountaire
Farms, Inc. (number 9) and Allen Family Farms, Inc. (number 16). All of these producers
administer massive quantities of human-used antibiotics to poultry for nontherapeutic
purposes. By contrast, only about 3 million pounds of antimicrobials are used in human
medicine each year, one-eighth the quantity used for the nontherapeutic treatment of animals.

The Union of Concerned Scientists estimates that nontherapeutic livestock use accounts for 70
percent of total antimicrobial use.(4) And the more antibiotics agribusinesses use, the more
likely that bacteria will become resistant. The Antibiotic Reporting Act (Senate and House
versions) was referred to the Senate Economic and Environmental Affairs Committee. Supporters
of the Antibiotic Reporting bill included members of the public health and scientific
communities, as well as environmental groups (especially the Sierra Club). At the Committee
hearing, the bill was opposed by several powerful industry groups, including the Maryland Farm
Bureau, the Animal Health Institute, Delmarva Poultry Industry, Inc., the Maryland Pork
Producers and the Maryland Grange and Dairy Farmers Association.

Despite receiving a favorable vote from the Senate Committee and despite Sen. Hollinger’s outstanding record of successfully moving legislation, the bill was voted down on the Senate floor by a two-to-one margin. Follow the Money Trail How could such a common-sense bill fail to pass? The question becomes less perplexing when we look at the deep pocket special interests opposed to it. The Maryland Farm Bureau is state chapter of the American Farm Bureau Federation (AFBF). While purporting to represent family farmers, the AFBF is in fact a coalition of agribusiness interests (including insurance, banking and factory-farming, for example), which takes in more than $200 million each year in membership dues. A major player in the U.S. Congress, AFBF can certainly take care of its interests in the smaller arena of the Maryland General Assembly. (5)

The Animal Health Institute is a coalition of pharmaceutical and related companies, including the Bayer Corporation. Bayer’s Animal Division, based in Kansas, dominates the market for animal-feed floroquinolones with a drug called Baytril, and has strongly opposed the FDA’s proposal to ban that class of antibiotics from subtherapeutic uses as well as numerous state efforts to reduce nontherapeutic livestock use ­ or even to study the issue. The Animal Health Institute (AHI) was represented in the Maryland General Assembly by its national Executive Director, a fact
that demonstrates the importance of the antibiotic reporting issue to the animal
pharmaceutical industry. In fact, a visit to AHI’s website (http://www.ahi.org/New_Welcome.htm) shows that defusing the entire issue is among the organization’s highest priorities; the
website is replete with various studies and "fact sheets" highly critical of any effort to
question the subtherapeutic use of antibiotics for animal growth.

 

For the AHI, it’s a questionof the bottom line: Of the fifty million pounds of antibiotics produced every year in the United States, 40 percent of that is given to animals, and 80% of what is given to animals is used to promote their growth. (6) Were poultry producers to change their antibiotic feeding practices, the result could be that AHI member companies such as Bayer would lose a very
significant market for its product. Delmarva Poultry Industry, Inc. (DPI), is a tri-state
trade association representing large poultry producers (and related interests) on the Eastern
Shore. DPI has long been very active and powerful in the Maryland General Assembly, employing
some of the state’s highest paid professional lobbyists.

 

Those lobbyists include Gerard Evans (now in jail for defrauding clients), William Satterfield, Michael Canning as well as George and Nicholas Manis. Agribusiness and pharmaceuticals contributed a total of $554,819 to all candidates for Maryland office in the 1998 election cycle, targeting $132 052 to candidates for the Senate. A single pharmaceutical interest group ­ the "Pharm PAC" family of PACS ­ all by itself contributed $27,980.

And A Closing Note From The University of Southwestern Medical School at Dallas, 1998. A
dangerous bacteria makes it more important than ever to be careful about how you handle
poultry. The bacteria called Campylobacter (Kam-PY-lo-back-ter) is believed to infect about 70
to 90 percent of all chickens. This bacteria causes an illness similar to that caused by
salmonella, another bacteria known to infect poultry. People with Campylobacter infection may
have severe diarrhea, abdominal pain stomach cramps and fever. The bacteria also can trigger
Guillain-Barre syndrome, a paralyzing illness. Salmonella causes more illness and death than
Campylobacter, but Campylobacter is beginning to cause concerns because the bacteria appears
to be developing a resistance to the antibiotics usually used to treat infections caused by
it.

To prevent illness caused by bacteria in poultry, it's important that you handle poultry
properly. Thaw poultry in the refrigerator rather than at room temperature. Wash any surface
that comes in contact with raw poultry with hot water and antibacterial cleanser. Don't use
the same utensils you used on raw poultry with cooked poultry. Cook poultry thoroughly. Use a
meat thermometer to make sure the poultry has reached a safe internal temperature

Doctors at UT Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas say cooking stuffing inside a chicken or
turkey can be risky. You're better off cooking the stuffing in a separate pan so it doesn't
get contaminated by bacteria from the poultry. ­ # ­
http://www.supermarketguru.com/FoodSafety/arch_02-17-02.html