Can you tell me more about antibiotics?
The use of antibiotics and growth hormones is getting a lot of coverage in the media these days. Clearly consumers are increasingly aware of how beef is produced, and there is growing demand for beef that has been raised without antibiotics and growth hormones.
These concerns grow out of the fact that in the last 50 years or so, the beef industry has used hormone implants to speed growth in cattle while reducing feed costs. Low levels of antibiotics are used in cattle feed to speed growth and compensate for overcrowded conditions in which infection spreads quickly. An additional concern is that some of the same antibiotics that are used for treating livestock illness are also used to treat illness in humans, and we already have a growing problem of antibiotic resistance.
If you're concerned, too, you may wonder how you can be sure the beef you buy comes from cattle that have been raised without antibiotics or growth hormones. It's simple: look at the label.
The Laura's Lean Beef Label
"Cattle raised without antibiotics. No growth hormones added." Only when you see a statement like this on the label can you be assured that the beef comes from cattle that have never been administered antibiotics or growth hormones, ever. You'll see this on the Laura's Lean Beef label.
This statement - "Cattle raised without antibiotics. No growth hormones added" - is a USDA-approved statement. It can only be put on a beef label if the cattle have been raised under a strict protocol regulated by the USDA. This program requires that farmers provide a signed legal affidavit for each head of cattle verifying that they have never been administered antibiotics or growth hormones in any way.
This statement on the Laura's Lean Beef label is your assurance that we participate in this USDA-monitored program. It means that Laura's Lean Beef meets a higher standard for natural; it's naturally raised.
"Natural" Beef
Why do we say Laura's Lean Beef meets a higher standard for natural? Because the USDA defines "All Natural" as "Contains no artificial ingredients. Minimally processed." Virtually all raw meat available in the grocery store meets this definition. It has no relationship to the use of antibiotics or growth hormones. In fact, if the label only says "All Natural" but nothing about antibiotics or growth hormones, it is almost certain that the beef has been raised conventionally, with both antibiotics and growth hormones.
Withdrawal Programs
Some beef programs advertise that their cattle do not receive antibiotics or growth hormone implants within 100 days pre-harvest. This statement refers to a relatively new USDA-approved program that involves affidavit verification for 100 days before slaughter. This is what is referred to as a withdrawal program, as growth hormones and antibiotics are used prior to the 100-day period. And, as a savvy consumer, you might be interested to know that most growth hormones administered to cattle are effective for 90 to 120 days; some are good for as much as 200-400 days. Research has shown that cattle given growth stimulants will weigh 35 to 40 pounds more than non-implanted cattle in as little as 130 days.
Residue Testing
Some beef companies advertise that they test their meat for chemical residues. Yet residue testing has nothing to do with how cattle are raised. A residue test is only designed to detect a specific level of residue after the beef has already been processed.
And residue testing does not mean that cattle have not been given growth hormones or antibiotics. In fact, they most likely have been. Residue testing is used to indicate illegal steroid stimulation, beyond what is considered standard practice.
Laura's Lean Beef does test for residues in the processing plant, but only as a final quality control measure. Our program is based on never using the substances, at all. To insure this, our farmers are required to sign affidavits on every head of cattle verifying that antibiotics and hormones have not been used. We employ cattle reps in the field to conduct on-farm inspections. And we test the feed that is given to our cattle.
About Antibiotic Resistance
In our opinion, the real issue with antibiotics has to do with antibiotic resistance. Resistance to antibiotics is a growing problem for both animals and humans.
Our approach has been to eliminate the use of antibiotics completely in our cattle. If any of our cattle become ill and need treatment with antibiotics, they are separated from the herd, treated, and permanently removed from our program.
Antibiotic Resistance
The use of antibiotics has improved the quality of life for both humans and animals. Decades ago, it was thought that antibiotics could beat any infection. Doctors and scientists now know that the more antibiotics are used, the less effective they become. More and more, incidences of drug-resistant infections are being found in both humans and animals.
An estimated 24.6 million pounds of antibiotics are used annually in the United States for livestock alone. That would equate to as much as 70% of the total antibiotics produced in the United States. Most of these antibiotics are not used to treat sick animals, but are used as additives in feed given to healthy livestock to promote growth and feed efficiency.
Antibiotics in animal feeds can improve feed conversion, increase growth rates, decrease feed consumption, combat low levels of infection and generally allow animals to remain healthy under less than ideal management conditions. Why antibiotics promote growth in animals is not entirely clear. There are several theories: 1) Perhaps low levels of antibiotics alter the microorganisms in the intestinal tract, or 2) Maybe the thinning of the intestinal lining allowing nutrients to be absorbed more efficiently, or 3) Feed contaminated with bacteria can be counteracted by antibiotics in the feed.
Does the use of antibiotics in livestock contribute to antibiotic resistance problems in humans? Most doctors and scientists agree that the resistance problems are primarily caused and compounded by the over-prescription of antibiotics for human illnesses such as viruses, against which they have little or no efficacy.
But Stuart Levy, MD, head of the Center for Adaptive Genetics and Drug Resistance at Tufts University (Boston), an internationally renowned researcher in antibiotic resistance, is among a growing number of scientists who believe that antibiotic resistance is also associated with the therapeutic and non-therapeutic use of antibiotics in food animals. Others have stated that the extensive use of antibiotics in animals prior to their use in humans shortens the effectiveness of the antibiotic.
Today, antibiotics are used in feeds for almost all commercially-raised animals including beef, chicken, pork, and farm-raised fish. Antibiotics are also used in household anti-bacterial cleaners, sprays for fruit trees, and in germ-resistant coatings on children's toys.
"Antimicrobial resistance is neither surprising nor new, but it is now becoming a rapidly spreading problem," according to former U.S. Surgeon General David Satcher. "Antimicrobial drugs kill the sensitive pathogens, but the resistant ones survive, and with time, the resistant ones predominate."
How much of a problem is antibiotic resistance? Thirty percent of the organisms which cause bacterial pneumonia, meningitis, urinary tract infections, and children's ear infections are resistant to penicillin. Ninety percent of Staphylococcus aureus bacteria are resistant to penicillin and other related antibiotics. One strain of S. aureus is already resistant to vancomycin, the most recent antibiotic available to treat it. Tuberculosis, gonorrhea, malaria, E. coli, pertussis, hepatitis C, cryptosporidiosis, campylobacter, and other disease causing bacteria are also appearing in resistant forms. Another important nosocomial infection caused by enterococci has shown similar resistance patterns to the antibiotic gentamycin, that can be found in humans, farm animals and foods found in grocery stores. This suggests a direct link from animals to humans through the food chain.
During the past five years in the United States there has been a nationwide emergence of a resistant strain of salmonella (salmonella typhimurium DT 104) which is resistant to five major antibiotics. Most salmonella infections are self-limiting, but in 3-10% of the cases (mostly in the young, aged or immunosuppressed), antibiotics are needed to save lives. In the United Kingdom, salmonella typhimurium DT 104 is widespread in food animals, particularly in cattle. A recent study found this particular bacterium to be resistant to up to five different antibiotics.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the World Health Organization have called for a ban on using medically important antibiotics, or any antibiotics used for treating human illnesses, in animal feeds. The CDC is also working in conjunction with several other U.S. governmental agencies to implement a health plan to combat antibiotic resistance. This plan has also suggested the use of antimicrobials in animal feed be curbed and improved animal husbandry to decrease the spread of disease.
The FDA in 2002 drafted a new set of guidelines on proposed antibiotics to be used in animals. These guidelines look at the potential effect on resistance and its spread to humans. The FDA believes that human exposure through the ingestion of resistant bacteria from animal-derived foods represents the most significant pathway for human exposure to resistant bacteria, which has emerged as a consequence of antibiotic use in animals.
The European Union (EU) has already removed a number of antibiotics used for growth promotion, and is working towards totally withdrawal of antibiotics as feed additives. The European Union also does not permit antibiotics used in humans to be used in animals at all. Sweden and Denmark have banned the use of antibiotics in animal feeds for several years. They have both shown a tremendous decrease in resistance to numerous antibiotics.
Laura's Lean Beef prohibits the use of antibiotics. If an animal must be treated with antibiotics due to disease, it is permanently removed from our program.
Estimates on the Levels of Antibiotic Use
The Union of Concerned Scientists is a 50,000 member non-profit group founded by faculty members and students at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In January 2001, the UCS issued a report called "Hogging It: Estimates of Antimicrobial Abuse in Livestock." The report was an effort to quantify the amount of antibiotics used with livestock. It included these findings:
- Antibiotics important for the treatment of human disease, including tetracycline and penicillin, are used extensively in the raising of livestock. An estimated 24.6 million pounds of antibiotics are given to livestock annually, not for treating illness, but for promoting growth and speeding animals to market.
- 70% of the antibiotics produced in the U.S. are used in the raising of livestock. The amount of antibiotics used in livestock for nontherapeutic reasons, in the absence of disease, is eight times the amount used for human medicine.
In 2003 one of UCS top priorities was to convince the Food and Drug Administration to severely curtail the numbers and kinds of antibiotics available for use in livestock production -- starting with those drugs important in human medicine. One of the UCS's first goals is to urge the FDA to ban or severely limit the use of antibiotics for nontherapeutic purposes such as growth promotion or disease prevention. Such action, according to UCS, would have the added benefit of pushing livestock management in the direction of more sustainable practices.
The American Medical Association on Antibiotics
In recent years, the American Medical Association has repeatedly called for reduced use of antibiotics in the livestock industry, including this resolution passed in June 2003:
Whereas, there is proven data to support gross overuse of antibiotics in healthy animals in the beef, chicken, pork and fish industry;
this overuse is rendering antibiotics to be ineffective in humans in cases of bacterial food poisoning, toxic shock syndrome, abscesses and numerous other illnesses;
this is so well studied that our American Medical Association has adopted a formal resolution opposing the non-therapeutic use of antibiotics in the industry;
and responsible producers are available to supply our school systems nationwide with superior antibiotic-free meats while maintaining the family farm;
therefore be it RESOLVED, That our American Medical Association request the federally funded school lunch program to purchase responsibly grown meats to be used in school lunch programs.
The U.S. Government Makes Recommendations on Antibiotic Resistance
In June 2002, a Task Force co-chaired by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Food and Drug Administration, and the National Institutes of Health released a Public Health Action Plan to Combat Antimicrobial Resistance. The group, called the Task Force on Antimicrobial Resistance, was created in 1999 and included the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, the Health Care Financing Administration, the Health Resources and Services Administration, the Department of Agriculture, the Department of Defense, the Department of Veterans Affairs, and the Environmental Protection Agency.
The Action Plan reflects a broad-based consensus of federal agencies on actions needed to address antimicrobial resistance. Input from state and local health agencies, universities, professional societies, pharmaceutical companies, health care delivery organizations, agricultural producers, consumer groups, and other members of the public was important in developing the plan.
Improved surveillance for antibiotic resistance was set as a priority, to allow early detection of resistance trends in pathogens that pose a risk to animal and plant health, as well as in bacteria that enter the food supply.
FDA Concerns About Antibiotic Resistance
In September 2002, the Food and Drug Administration announced a new document entitled "Guidance for Industry: Evaluating the Safety of Antimicrobial New Animal Drugs with Regard to Their Microbiological Effects on Bacteria of Human Health Concern." According to the document, FDA's main safety concern is that use of antimicrobial drugs in food-producing animals may lead to the emergence of bacterial pathogens (disease-causing organisms) that may be harmful to humans and that are resistant to drugs used to treat human illness. The emergence of resistant pathogens makes treating human illnesses more difficult.
The full text of the guidance can be found online at: http://www.fda.gov/OHRMS/DOCKETS/98fr/98d-1146-gdl0001.doc. In the January/February 2001 issue of FDA Consumer Magazine, the FDA's concern about antibiotics being mixed in animal feed was traced back 30 years:
"The use of antibiotics in food animals has been a human health concern since the 1970s when FDA first called for restrictions on antibiotics used in animal feed. Prior to 1995, when fluoroquinolones were first approved to treat poultry, very few fluoroquinolone-resistant Campylobacter were found in people with foodborne diseases in the United States. After the approval, however, many more fluoroquinolone-resistant bacteria were found in humans and in poultry from slaughter plants and retail stores."
In December 2000, the Food and Drug Administration's Task Force on Antimicrobial Resistance issued a report on the use of antibiotics in food animals. The report pointed out the trade-off involved in such antibiotic use: "The use of antimicrobial agents in food animals helps provide inexpensive products for the public but can contribute to the pool of resistant pathogens." Of particular concern was "that certain drugs, of classes currently viewed as critical for human medicine, are already being used in food animals."
European Action on Antibiotics
Because of concerns about the growing level of resistance to antibiotics in regular use in human medicine, the Scientific Steering Committee on Animal Nutrition was asked by the European Commission to undertake a major review of the medical and non-medical use of antibiotics. The Committee recommended that the use of antibiotics as growth promoters in animal nutrition be phased out. As a result, a number of antibiotics used as growth promoters have been removed from the market in the European Union, and the EC has stated its intention to phase out those remaining in use. The Committee issued several opinions on this issue in 2000, 2001 and 2002.
For Additional Reading on Antibiotics
Butaye, Patrick et al. Antimicrobial Growth Promoters Used in Animal Feed: Effects of Less Well Known Antibiotics on Gram-Positive Bacteria. Clin Micro Reviews. 16(2): 175-188
CDC. A Public Health Action Plan to Combat Antimicrobial Resistance, June 2002.
Crump, John A. et al. Bacterial Contamination of Animal Feed and Its Relationship to Human Foodborne Illness. Clinical Infectious Diseases 2002; 35:859-65.
Donabedian, S. M. et al. J Clin Micor. Molecular Characterization of Gentamicin-Resistant Enterococci in the United States: Evidence of Spread from Animals to Humans through Food 41(3): 1109-1113, 2003.
EPA. National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System Permit Regulation and Effluent Limitation Guidelines and Standards for Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs), FRL-7424-7, February 12, 2003.
European Commission. Opinion Of The Scientific Steering Committee On Antimicrobial Resistance, 28 May 1999.
Facts about Antibiotics in Animals and their Impact on Resistance (FAAIR), published in the Journal of Clinical Infectious Diseases, Vol. 34, Supplement 3, June 1, 2002).
FDA/CVM. Evaluating the Safety of Antimicrobial New Animal Drugs with Regard to Their Microbiological Effects on Bacteria of Human Health Concern, DRAFT GUIDANCE (Docket #98d-1146), September 2, 2002.
Fey, Paul D., et al. 2000. Ceftriaxone-Resistant Salmonella Infection Acquired by a Child From Cattle. The New England Journal of Medicine 342 (April 27);1242.
Glynn, M.K., et al. 1998. Emergence of Multidrug-resistant Salmonella Enterica Serotype Typhimurium DT104 Infections in the United States. The New England Journal of Medicine 338(May 7):1333.
Hamer, D. From the farm to the kitchen table: the negative impact of antimicrobial use in animals on humans. Nutri Rev 60(8): 261-264, 2002.
Kaufman, M. McDonald's Asks Meat Suppliers to Stop Using Antibiotics. Washington Post, June 19, 2003.
Klugman, KP. The role of clonality in the global spread of fluoroquinolone-resistant bacteria. Clin Inf Dis. 36: 783-785, 2003.
Kolpin, D.W. et al. (2002). Pharmaceuticals, Hormones, and Other Organic Wastewater Contaminants in U.S. Streams, 1999-2000: A National Reconnaissance. Environmental Science & Technology, 36(6):1202-1211.
Lai, K. K., et al. 1999. Letter to Dr. Henne
