blog#10 Research paper.

Prof. Smith.

Class. ENG101.           

Diana Coll.

05/06/14

Research Paper.

Antibiotics and Food Animal Industry.

            According to the Physicians for Social Responsibility a research in 2000 found on average every American consume nearly 195 pounds of meat (red meat, poultry, and fish) per year. To reach the demand of meat there are many farms devoted to mass-producing cattle.  Most of this meat comes from an industrial meat system plagued with a variety of problems such as salmonella and to fight against this disease farmers are using antibiotics to stop spread of this virus. Since are we eating so much meat, can you imagine the amount of antibiotics we have to process second handily? However by using these antibiotics on animals, it also poses a threat to human life. Antibiotics use on animals should be limited because they can lead to antibiotic resistance in humans. I feel this practice is irresponsible because it may lead to many problems especially in human health.

It is estimated that non-therapeutic use of antibiotics in the livestock production accounts for nearly 80 percent of all antibiotics in the United States. An a good example of this non-therapeutic drug use is the administration of low levels of antibiotics to animals through feed and water to prevent disease because of the miserable conditions in which those animals are raised. They grow in close confinement often standing or laying in their own waste, and because of this, animals are under constant stress that inhibits their immune systems and make them more prone to infections. The other reason the farmers use antibiotics is to make the animal gain weight and grow more because the antibiotics kill the flora of the animal that would normally thrive in the animals intestines, there by allowing the animal to utilize their food more effectively. The routine of feeding the animals with antibiotics for growth promotion and disease prevention contribute to the present problem that humans face that is antibiotics resistance .

A lot of antibiotics given to cattle are the same antibiotics doctors use to treat human illnesses. For example neomycin and tetracycline are available to be use in cattle feed. Tetracycline is related to oxytetracycline and chlorletracycline are use to prevent and treat pneumonia in calves but they are also used in lower concentration to help calves grow faster and improve their feed efficiency. Neomycin is a component of cattle antibiotics for growth promotion and this is one of several others common human antibiotics on list. Procaine, penicillin, benzathine penicillin, ampicillin, amoxicillin and sprctinomycin are approved and used in cattle too, and the others antibiotics used for cattle are not on the human list, but a lot of them are members of drug “families” that include some important human antibiotics. As an example of this enrofloxacin cattle antibiotic, is not used on people but is closely related to drugs like ciprofloxacin, that is very important for human especially benzathine, penicillin and procaine because this antibiotics are the ones who fights some of the strongest bacteria in the human body. These antibiotics are use to treat many different types of severe infections including strep and staph infections, diphtheria, meningitis, gonorrhea, and syphilis. They are also used to prevent infections of the heart valves in people with certain heart conditions who need to have dental work or surgery. In conclusion antibiotics affect the meat from an animal that is treated with them therefore the human is also affected by this condition.   

The Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates that 60,000 American die each year for antibiotic resistant disease. Inappropriate use and overuse of antibiotics in human medicine was often the main cause of this problem but now increased because of the inappropriate use that comes from agriculture.

Antibiotic resistance is similar to how immunization helps the human body fight disease by exposing the immune system to a small amount of virus or bacteria. When bacteria are continually exposed to a small amount of antibiotics they can develop immunity to them. The Center of Disease Control estimates that each year in the U.S almost two million people acquire infections, 70 percent of which are resistant to at least one commonly used antibiotic, this problem of antibiotic resistance has accelerated through the use of antibiotics in animals for non-therapeutic treatment. According to a new report by the FDA approximately 80 percent of all antibiotics used in the U.S are for farm animals    

There is evidence that antibiotic in animals we eat created antibiotic resistance in humans but there is insufficient evidence as how big the problem it is says Dr. Margaret Mellon, with The Union of Concerned Scientists. A study published in the New England Journal of Medicine of February 6, 2002 research found links that strongly suggested that people who developed (cipro resistant) bacteria had acquired them by eating pork that were contaminated with salmonella. This research concludes that salmonella flouroquine can be spread from swine to humans and, therefore the use of fouroquinolones on food animals should be prohibited. Another New England journal of Medicine study from October 18 2001, found that 20 percent of ground meat obtained in supermarkets contained salmonella, of the 20 percent that was contaminated with salmonella, 84 percent was resistant to at least one form of antibiotic. By trying to prevent disease in animals opening the possibility of humans to get sick by creating antibiotic resistance. Therefore the government should control more the antibiotics in animals.

One of the most common infections in both humans and animals is salmonella, which is a bacteria. The initial source of salmonella in humans is often from contaminated feed such as beef, poultry, milk and eggs. Most people infected with these bacteria develop diarrhea, fever and abdominal cramps 12 to 72 hours infection, in some patients; the salmonella infection may spread from the intestine to the blood system and then to other body sites and can cause death unless this person is treated promptly with antibiotics. Treatment of clinical salmonella should be including an approved and effective antimicrobial drug such as ceftiofor, florfenicol, or ampicillin. Every year, approximatety 24,000 cases of salmonella are reported in the United States but because many cases are not diagnosed or reported, the actual number of infection may be twenty-nine percent or more times greater of the actual number. It is estimated that approximately 400 persons die each year with acute salmonella and some times is difficult to treat this condition because oh the antibiotic resistance we are facing        

The World Health Organization is concerned enough about antibiotic resistance to suggest significantly reducing the use of antibiotics in animals we eat .In this report on global surveillance of this situation reveals that antibiotic resistance is no longer a prediction for the future; it is happening right now, across the world and is putting at risk the ability to treat common infections in the community and hospitals. For example a regular cold could be become as one of the most dangerous and deadly infection in the world and without urgent coordinated action, the world is directed towards a post-antibiotic era, in which common infections, which have been treatable for decades, can once again kill.

 Concern about the growing level of antibiotic resistance has led to the banning of sub-therapeutic use of antibiotics in meat animals in many countries in the European Union and Canada. In the United States, however, such use is still legal. If this problem is controlled antibiotic resistance will be remarkably reduced. The government should pay greater attention to the amount of cases and statistics of the high numbers of hospitalization and deaths caused by antibiotics resistance. This is the result from farmer’s excess use of medicine in animals.

Works Cited

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 14 May 2014. Web. 18 May 2014.

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"U.S. Department of Agriculture." U.S. Department of Agriculture. Web. 19 May 2014.

"WebMD - Better Information. Better Health." WebMD. WebMD. Web. 17 May 2014.