Antibiotics in the Poultry Industry - Editorial

February 15, 2002

February 13, 2002

Antibiotics in the Poultry Industry

It was a pleasant surprise to learn this week that three large poultry

companies had greatly reduced their use of antibiotics in healthy chickens,

a move that could help slow the emergence of antibiotic resistance in

bacteria that cause diseases in humans. Other companies ought to follow the

lead of these pioneers, and Congress ought to ban the use of medically

important antibiotics in animal husbandry except to cure sick animals.

Strong action is needed because many germs that infect humans are growing

resistant to treatment with antibiotics. Such resistance occurs inevitably

over time as an antibiotic kills off susceptible strains of a germ and

leaves only the more resistant strains to proliferate. But in recent decades

the growth of resistance has been increased by overuse of antibiotics in

agriculture, where companies routinely use the drugs to promote growth on

less feed and to prevent disease in healthy animals. As a result, some germs

that infect both animals and humans have become resistant to antibiotics,

and even germs that do not infect humans are capable of transferring their

antibiotic-resistance genes to germs that do.

That is why the report in Sunday's Times by n Burros was so

encouraging. She found that three poultry companies that produce a third of

the chickens consumed by Americans each year - Farms, Perdue Farms

and Tyson Foods - have greatly reduced the use of antibiotics in healthy

chickens and are using them primarily to treat sick chickens.

There is no reason that other poultry producers could not do the same, and

probably the pork and beef industries as well. It is unacceptable that any

industry should use medically important antibiotics for the economic purpose

of fostering growth. Congress and the Food and Drug Administration need to

curtail the use of animal antibiotics that are related to human medicines.

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