Inappropriate Use Of Antibiotics On Farm Animals

Great Essays
Antibiotics have been playing a critical role in saving human lives since the 1940s; however, now the inappropriate use of antibiotics is hindering their integrity. The overuse of doses of antibiotics by the food animal industry is responsible for the rise in drug-resistant bacteria that are being spread from farms to the general public, through the food that consumers are purchasing. Efforts are beginning to be made to end the use of low doses of antibiotics on farm animals because of public health risks. This should be a rising concern for many Americans because antibiotic resistant bacterial strains are rapidly developing. More than just public health concerns, the farm animals that are being bred under these conditions is unethical and …show more content…
The continuous exposure of bacteria to doses of antibiotics helps to develop immunity against them. These resistant bacteria have developed and adapted far enough that antibiotics can no longer be used effectively. It has been found that there have been about 19,000 deaths per year from staphylococcus aureus. This is a bacterium which is the most common cause of a staph infection. in the US as a result of the built resistance to methicillin, which is typically used to treat staph. Concerns of antibiotic resistance has increased because of the over exposure to antibiotics in both humans and …show more content…
Although reducing or terminating the nontherapeutic uses of antibiotics seems like the clear solution, the application of doing so is much harder said than done. The biggest problem is going against and challenging the routine procedures of a very powerful industry. The Center for Disease Control and the World Health Organization are working towards bringing an end to the nontherapeutic use in livestock. The FDA created a deal in 2008 which mandated that companies would disclose data regarding types of drugs and amounts that are being sold. Since the FDA requested companies to keep track we have found that antibiotic use in meat animals has risen by 16%. I believe to put an end to these problems a key component in doing so, is public

Related Documents

  • Improved Essays

    The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has updated its regulations on how antibiotics can and will be given to food-producing animals. The main way that these drugs will be given is by veterinarians for specific animal health issues and is outlined by The Veterinary Feed Directive. Allied Cooperative, Wisconsin’s leading co-op, offers extensive services and supplies including agronomy, grain, auto parts, hardware, convenience stores, and more, and they want you to understand The Veterinary Feed Directive. The Veterinary Feed Directive requires veterinarians to issue all feed directive drugs within the context of the state’s veterinarian-client-patient-relationship (VCPR).…

    • 302 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Many say that overall they are beneficial; that they allow animals to digest food more readily, that they get more benefits from their food, avoid more illness, and that they will grow stronger due to this. The trend of using antibiotics has increased due to the boost in demand for more meat at a faster rate. The small confinement in concentrated animal feedlot operations means that more bacteria and pathogens will spread, spiking illness rates. At first glance antibiotics may seem like a considerable solution to our problems, but in the long run they may become our inevitable downfall. There is indication that the high volume use of antibiotics is leading to an escalation of antibiotic-resistant microbes.…

    • 1196 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    ) Discuss antibiotic resistant bacteria, cause and effect. Antibiotic resistant bacteria is a big concern now a day due to the use of excessive and improper use of antibiotics. It is very common for people to star taking an antibiotic and stop the regimen as soon as the symptoms are gone. With this practice, bacteria that were not killed by the antibiotic but were exposed, are capable of becoming immune to it.…

    • 727 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    One key fact is that over 80% of all of the antibiotics produced are put directly into the animals themselves, our food supply. So each time we eat animals, we are constantly being exposed to antibiotics (possibly leading to drug-resistant diseases). The author points out that these drugs are given to make up for the extremely poor living conditions the animals are exposed to, “like living on top of one another 's waste.” She goes on to point out that most of the antibiotics “were specifically administered to artificially increase rapid growth.” This article was helpful in putting into perspective that although the intention of the antibiotics seems positive, the end result is much worse than the intention, and we are also paying the cost.…

    • 1339 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    It also helped defeat mastitis, an infection in the udders of dairy cattle. As antibiotics began to be used in livestock herds, farmers and researchers noticed an interesting development, the animals did not only have improved health because of the antibiotics, but they also grew faster, which would then as a result make meat cheaper because it would allow animals to produce more meat without using more feed. As a result of this discovery antibiotics were added to the feed of all animals in the herd, whether they had bacterial infections or not. Antibiotics may also be given to animals that are in danger of becoming sick in order to prevent the illness or infection from occurring or spreading throughout the…

    • 777 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Farms that are not properly maintained can develop salmonella and E. Coli which is passed onto humans through meat, dairy, and eggs. To fight off the bacteria, animals are fed or injected with large amounts of antibiotics. Industrial farms have been adding antibiotics to livestock since 1946. Shortly after, studies began to show that antibiotics were making animals grow faster and gain weight more efficiently. All of which were qualities that were increasing meat producer’s profits.…

    • 1239 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Philpott Meat Industry

    • 770 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Philpott stated, “...livestock farms have been sucking in more and more of the drugs each year—and consumption reached a record nearly 29.9 billion pounds in 2011” (Philpott). This slipup of stating that the use of antibiotics in the meat industry was 29.9 billion pounds instead of the actual 29.9 million can mislead readers into thinking the use of antibiotics is way greater than it actually…

    • 770 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    According to Jonathan Safran Foer in his book, Eating Animals, "About 3 million pounds of antibiotics are given to humans each year, but a whopping 17.8 million pounds are fed to livestock". For years, with the approval from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to treat farm animals with antibiotics, farmers were feeding their animals with drugs to compensate for their compromised immune systems due to feed additives and overcrowded conditions. This results in major health concerns as animals are fed antibiotics as a precautionary measure to prevent food-borne diseases, leading to antibiotic-resistance. The question is: what happens if we don't treat farm animals with antibiotics? Is it easier to treat food-borne diseases by…

    • 358 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Funding is essential to this so it is important that funding is increased and maintained in the area to support work into finding solutions to antibiotic resistance. From 2010-2014 the spending by the National Institute of Health on antibiotic resistance was $1.7 billion compared to $26.5 billion spent on cancer research (13). This disproportionate allocation of funding demonstrates that, whereas cancer is very important, antibiotic resistance is receiving far too little attention. This imbalance suggests that because the effects of this problem are more subtle they draw less attention. This shows that there is not appropriate focus on antibiotic resistance which is a very important issue that will only worsen without more…

    • 723 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Antibiotic resistant bacteria are bacteria that are resistant to the antibiotics that at one time were able to kill them. It is a growing issue in today’s society especially since it is unknown how these microbes are able to mutate around a treatment that was once lethal to them. The consensus in the healthcare community is that these microbes will be an increasing threat until a solution is found. There is still discussion and controversy over the best method of identification and infection control that should be put into practice to prevent the spread of multidrug resistant bacteria. However, the most prevalent controversy surrounding this topic seems to be over how the taxpayer’s money is best spent related to new treatment of these microbes,…

    • 513 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    1. Antibiotic resistance is a big problem and one that is getting worse. Use the CDC site or other sources to answer these questions about antibiotic resistance. Please site your sources. Answer each part in 2-3 sentences.…

    • 1374 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    For more than 70 years, antibiotics have been used to treat bacterial infections of the body. The first appearance of this life changing medicine, was in the 1940’s on the battlefield. This medicine was named penicillin, the drug saved many from the brink of death, by fighting bacterial diseases; from then on antibiotics changed the face of medicine. Infection was no longer an impregnable wall that had to be broken down before the real treatment could begin, infections could be treated on site, at moments notice. As time passed, the world became co-dependent on the use of antibiotics to treat all of the body 's infections, and was repeatedly misused.…

    • 772 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Antibiotic resistance also known as Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is when bacteria acquire the ability to resist the destructive and lethal effects of an antibiotic. New strains of resistant bacteria appear via mutations that introduce an antibiotic resistant gene and then evolve by “Survival of the Fittest". In presence of antibiotics, alleles providing bacteria with resistance are under strong selective pressure. Hence, surviving strains will be in a competition free environment, they will grow and reproduce rapidly. The resistance allele can also be propagated via conjugation and horizontal gene transfer.…

    • 1497 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Antibiotic Resistance Introduction: One of the challenges affecting the medical world is antibiotic resistance. This is a concern because antibiotics have been used for decades to treat hundreds of diseases. I was able to find two articles that go over this issue. The first one was found on http://www.cdc.gov/drugresistance/about.html and the second on http:/x/www.medicinenet.com/antibiotic_resistance/article.htm.…

    • 834 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    People are not aware of the problems that are likely to cause an end to life as known. Antibiotic resistance is a life-threatening problem most choose to ignore. “Each year in the United States, at least two million people become infected with bacteria that are resistant to antibiotics,” says Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (2016). Doctors are prescribing antibiotics when they should not be used, or should use a weaker dose of that antibiotic. Before too long, the bacteria are going to be unstoppable and cause permanent damage to its host.…

    • 1349 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Superior Essays