Drugmakers Pose Threat to Global Health

A ruptured MRSA cyst. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The decades long use of antibiotics in industrial farming has created an impending medical catastrophe.

Large corporate U.S farms feed antibiotics to pigs, chickens, and cows to stimulate growth and save on feed costs.

But now multidrug-resistant bacteria in chicken, beef, pork and even vegetables, has reached epic levels.

The explosion of human drug-resistant infections kill tens of thousands. The antibiotic-resistant staph infection known as MRSA kills more Americans than AIDS, and is widespread in the U.S. pig herd.

In The Lancet, leading healthcare experts published an urgent appeal: “We have watched too passively as the treasury of drugs that has served us well has been stripped of its value. We urge our colleagues worldwide to take responsibility for the protection of this precious resource. There is no longer time for silence and complacency.”

In the United States, approximately 80 percent of antibiotic drugs sold are regularly used on food animals in factory farms to promote faster animal growth.

In March, a federal judge ordered the FDA to withdraw approval for the use of common antibiotics in animal feed because of fears that overuse is endangering human health by creating antibiotic-resistant “superbugs”.

But as Bloomberg recently pointed out, "the loopholes are gaping. Even if farmers comply, they can still feed animals antibiotics for disease prevention, provided they get a veterinarian’s approval."

And no enforcement mechanisms are in place to discourage farmers or vets from giving antibiotics to animals to aid growth.

Considering that 80 percent of the antibiotics sold in the U.S. are fed to animals, pharmaceutical companies  will never voluntarily withdraw from a market whose sales constitute 29 million pounds of antibiotics a year.

Bloomberg notes that many of these drugs, such as fluoroquinolones and cephalosporins, are front-line treatments for human illnesses such as urinary-tract infections and pneumonia. But more and more of the bacteria that cause such diseases have become resistant to the drugs.

In the grotesque quest for profits and sales, drug companies and factory farms are willing to subject us all to antibiotic resistance superbugs that experts now claim poses as great a threat to global health as Aids and pandemic flu, while the FDA does nothing.