At some point in your high school career, you likely learned how the body becomes resistant to certain antibiotics over time. While it may not seem like a big deal, consider how such a principle affects livestock treated with antibiotics—especially when that livestock later becomes our food. Antibiotic resistance brings up endless questions. We’ve compiled answers here for you.
What is antibiotic resistance and why is it a problem?
Simply phrased, antibiotic resistance is when a bacteria learns how to defeat the antibiotic designed to kill it. If you’ve ever had a doctor caution you to finish taking a prescription even if you feel better before you’re through, that’s why. Despite feeling better, the bacterial infection in your body might not be entirely gone if you don’t finish your antibiotics. By only taking some of the prescription, you give the bacteria all the information it needs to learn how to fight the antibiotic next time you use it. Widespread antibiotic resistance to bacterial illnesses is also increasing, making it a worldwide problem that leaves the United States susceptible to outbreaks.
You may not feel like antibiotics hold a very important place in your lifestyle, but you’d be wrong—especially if you eat meat. The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Economic Research Service (ERS) explains, “Farmers use antibiotics to treat, control, and prevent animal diseases and to increase the productivity of animals and operations. Use of antibiotics is common in modern U.S. livestock production, where animals are confined in barns, dry lots, or houses. However, concern is growing that excessive antibiotic use in livestock and humans will contribute to the emergence of organisms that are resistant to most or all antibiotics.”
Bacteria multiply at an incredibly fast rate, especially in the right conditions. If a bacteria learns how to defeat the antibiotic designed to defeat it, that single advance bacteria will multiply by the millions when given the right conditions. When we consume antibiotics through meat, we allow the bacteria the opportunity to learn how to bypass these antibiotics when they’re in our bodies. This is a problem when those bacteria can seriously affect human health.
What issues do we face in confronting antibiotic resistance?
Unfortunately, antibiotic resistance is not an easy issue to combat. Antibiotics are woven into the framework of the American lifestyle and serious changes would have to be made in both the farming and healthcare industries in order to see real change. The United States Government Accountability Office (GAO) performed a study on this issue and shared the following findings:
- First, “The precise magnitude of the problem of antibiotic resistance is unknown.” The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) work to gather knowledge on the severity of antibiotic resistance problems, but there are many unknown cases that contribute to the uncertain magnitude of the issue at hand.
- Why can’t they invest more time into learning more about the issue? Well, because “the CDC faces challenges in conducting surveillance for antibiotic resistance due to the limited data it is able to collect through various surveillance systems.” In the GAO’s study, they used the example of gonorrhea. The CDC has identified gonorrhea as “an urgent antibiotic resistance threat affecting over half a million patients annually.” Despite the intensity of this bacterial infection, they “currently track only an estimated 1 to 2 percent of all U.S. cases and only in males.” Additional studies and programs would be required in order to more effectively track dangerous bacterial infections.
- Additionally, agencies with the ability to conduct these studies can’t come to an agreement on what to do. If roles and responsibilities are addressed and clarified, these organizations could become more efficient and effective in the fight against antibiotic resistance.
- Lastly, companies who make antibiotics currently have very few incentives to work against the threat of antibiotic resistance. There is a “notably inadequate return on investment for drug companies largely due to low prices and a limited patient population for whom these treatments would be appropriate.” Many agree that the economic loss is too steep to jump into creating new treatments. With additional incentivization, companies would be more willing to aid in antibiotic resistance efforts.
Food supply issues
The CDC’s U.S. National Action Plan
So what is the government doing about antibiotic resistance? First and foremost, there is a National Action Plan in place to help decrease the effects of antibiotic resistance before they become too difficult to contain. The full plan can be read at the CDC’s website but to summarize, the Plan has five main goals listed as follows:
- Slow the emergence of resistant bacteria and prevent the spread of resistant infections
- Strengthen national One Health surveillance efforts to combat resistance
- Advance development and use of rapid and innovative diagnostic tests for identification and characterization of resistant bacteria
- Accelerate basic and applied research and development for new antibiotics, antifungals, other therapeutics, and vaccines
- Improve international collaboration and capacities for antimicrobial-resistance prevention, surveillance, control, and drug research and development
The current Plan spans from 2020 – 2025 and the task force charged with creating it was led by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation. The 2020 – 2025 Plan was built to continue the progress of the first Plan, which spanned the years 2015 – 2020. In the 2022 annual progress report, the author states that despite moving in the right direction with their efforts, “antibiotic resistance remains an urgent threat in the United States and abroad.”
Other government policies
In the food supply industry, farmers are no longer allowed to legally use antibiotics to increase growth and production. However, they are allowed to use antibiotics to prevent infections and outbreaks. Despite the World Health Organization (WHO) urging the end of this practice and warning about antibiotic resistance, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has yet to implement policies phasing out the use of antibiotics in livestock altogether.
Arguments against ridding the food supply industry of antibiotic use include the waiting period required between the last dose of antibiotics an animal is given and the slaughter date. This time period has been shown to reduce, if not completely eliminate in most cases, any residue of antibiotics from transferring to the meat and other animal products. There is also argument that the complete banning of antibiotics would cause an economic crisis in the food supply industry.
In tandem with the FDA, the Center for Veterinary Medicine (CVM) has issued a policy that keeps new animal antibiotics under the guard of necessary prescriptions. They are no longer available as over-the-counter drugs. By making the prescription a necessity, only livestock with a proven need to access said antibiotics will have the ability to take them. This should decrease the overall amount of antibiotics in food supply. It is still uncertain how much of an effect this policy has on antibiotic resistance. However, along those same lines, the improvement of health in livestock given antibiotics appears to be declining and some researchers believe antibiotics cause no improvement in general food supply health overall.
Conclusion
Antibiotic resistance is a problem the CDC and other health organizations are working to solve. With the issues the CDC faces in doing more research on antibiotic resistance, it’s uncertain whether the government is doing “enough” to satisfy the problem and prevent a future pandemic. Consider this issue thoroughly as policies affecting it are proposed in your area. And remember, Policy vs Politics is here with unbiased information about the issues.