Chicken Transmission
Sometimes it's sort of satisfying to say "I told you so." But in this case I really wish we had all been wrong.
I'm talking about the growing antibiotic resistance crisis. For many, many years, concerned physicians and scientists warned about the overuse of antibiotics and the potentially disastrous consequences. No one paid very much attention-but now, those predictions are coming true.
Antibiotic resistance has many root causes: doctors' inappropriate prescribing practices, noncompliant patients, and the overuse of antibacterial agents in everything from laundry detergents to hand cream, just to name a few. Now research has confirmed the influence of another contributing factor that many people aren't even aware of - one that the authorities have long denied.
Researchers at the Mayo Clinic recently confirmed that meat from chickens and turkeys treated with antibiotics contain antibiotic-resistant bacteria. And worse - the research suggested that the drug-resistance can be passed on to the people who eat the meat.
Poultry farmers have long treated their livestock with antibiotics, to prevent the spread of infections and boost growth in thousands of birds being kept in very tight quarters. (Dairy farmers also treat their cows with antibiotics, though this study did not look at dairy products.) While critics have long questioned how the practice affects the safety of our food, government authorities and food experts have been rolling their eyes at the issue for years.
But the results of this study have to make them look twice. The Mayo scientists compared meat samples: 77 packages of antibiotic-treated poultry from retail stores against 23 packages of antibiotic-free poultry. They were looking in particular at the effects of virginiamycin, the most commonly used antibiotic in poultry farming.
Virginiamycin is related to a human antibiotic called quinupristin-dalfopristin (known by the brand name Synercid), which is routinely used in hospitals to fight Enterococcus faecium. This bacterium can cause gastrointestinal disease, particularly in patients with weakened immune systems.
When they compared the poultry samples, they found four times as many mutated enterococcus bacteria in the conventional samples as in the drug-free poultry.
Then they analyzed stool samples from 105 poultry-eaters who were newly hospitalized and 65 healthy vegetarians. Nearly 40 percent of the poultry-eaters showed signs of Synercid-resistance - while not one of the vegetarians did.
Granted, this study did not find direct evidence that the poultry-eaters were now resistant to Synercid or any other antibiotic. And there are still a lot of unanswered questions. But I think it provides enough evidence to warrant some action - particularly since this is one aspect of the antibiotic resistance puzzle that could be easily addressed.
European countries have already forbidden their farmers from using virginiamycin. I hope this study (which, interestingly, was funded by the U.S. government) leads us to make the same change.
But in the meantime, you can make the change for yourself. It's not always easy to find antibiotic-free poultry (and it typically costs a bit more) but I hope you'll agree that it's worth it. Choose carefully: there should be wording on the label specifying that the meat is antibiotic-free. (The term "organic" alone doesn't guarantee it.) And keep asking your grocer to carry more antibiotic free (and growth hormone-free) meats and dairy products. That's how things get done in this country - by consumer demand.
