Antibiotic Resistance

An estimated 70 percent of all antibiotics used in the United States. are fed to chickens, hogs, and beef cattle. The majority of these important drugs are not used to treat disease but rather to promote growth and to compensate for the crowded, stressful, and unsanitary conditions on factory farms. These uses are considered "non-therapeutic" because they are administered to healthy animals via food or water where there is no clinical sign of disease. More than half of those drugs are identical or closely related to medicines doctors use to treat human illness. This wasteful practice generates antibiotic-resistant bacteria that are transferred to people via food, farm workers, or the environment. The rise of antibiotic-resistant bacteria has reduced the effectiveness of antibiotics important for treating human illness. FACT works to protect public health by reducing the unnecessary use of these key antibiotics on-farm.

FACT supports a comprehensive approach to curtailing the development of antibiotic resistant bacteria. Our highest priority is phasing out the routine, non-therapeutic use of drugs in livestock that are important in human medicine. FACT also supports collecting data on resistance and data on how drugs are used in animals.

Keep Antibiotics Working

FACT's work on antibiotic resistance is done in conjunction with the Keep Antibiotics Working coalition (KAW). FACT provides leadership to KAW, a coalition of 14 health, consumer, agricultural, environmental, and humane organizations with a combined membership of more than eleven million people. FACT, through its work with  KAW, advocates for policy changes that would reduce livestock production’s contribution to the health crisis of antibiotic resistance. Visit KAW's website at www.keepantibioticsworking.com to learn more about the coalition.

Resistance and Drug Use Data

It is crucial that comprehensive data on antibiotic resistance are collected so that problems can be identified and addressed. For example, the FDA withdrew the approval of Baytril—a fluoroquinolone antibiotic almost identical to the important human drug Cipro—for use in poultry because data showed dramatic increases in resistance after the drug was approved for use in animals. Drug use data are needed to understand the causes associated with changes in resistance. Drug use data is also important to determine how well programs aimed at reducing drug overuse are working.  

There currently exists a federal program to collect and compare data on resistance in bacteria from livestock, meat, and humans. This program, the National Antimicrobial Resistance Monitoring System (NARMS), provides useful data on resistance trends, but is too limited. Information on resistance levels in livestock is particularly limited because consistent data for several important bacteria are not collected from cattle and swine. This makes it difficult to identify trends. The collection of data on bacteria from meat is more consistent than the livestock program, but too few meat products are sampled to provide a clear picture.

There is not a system in place to monitor how antibiotics are used in farm animals. The Animal Health Institute (AHI), the organization that lobbies on behalf of the animal drug industry, periodically releases survey data based on response from its members. Unfortunately, they provide almost no information on how the drugs are used. AHI's survey is also limited in scope and categorizes the data in such a way that a clear interpretation is almost impossible.

Extralabel Drug Use

FACT supports limiting the extralabel use of antibiotic drugs. A drug is used 'extralabel' when it is administered in a manner not approved by the FDA. For example, an extralabel use could be a drug approved for cattle when used in poultry, or even a drug approved only for humans used in cattle or other livestock. In 1994, Congress passed legislation making extralabel drug use in livestock legal if prescribed by a veterinarian. This law is routinely flouted by livestock producers who often use drugs extralabel without input from a veterinarian. Extralabel use can be dangerous because FDA's safety evaluations only cover the intended use of a drug. It is even more dangerous when livestock owners make extralabel decision without veterinary advice. When extralabel use is commonplace, resistance can develop as drugs are used more widely than allowed by the label. Drugs used extralabel also have also not been evaluated to show that they actually work. Due to these considerations, FACT is in favor of limiting such uses and has supported the banning of certain, high-risk extralabel drug uses. See www.keepantibioticsworking.com for more information.