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The common practice of adding antibiotics to animal feed may put humans at risk for infection with drug-resistant bacteria.
Atlanta—Because of the risks they pose to human health, certain antibiotics should probably not be used to promote animal growth, say the authors of an article in the upcoming issue of Emerging Infectious Diseases, CDC's peer-reviewed journal, which tracks new and reemerging infections worldwide.
For more than 30 years, antibiotics have been added to animal feed to increase animal growth. The use of antibiotics in animals is estimated to account for more than half the total antibiotic use worldwide. One growth-promoting antibiotic, avoparcin, causes growth of bacteria (Enterococcus faecium) resistant to the antibiotic vancomycin.
How do animal growth promoters threaten human health? This can happen in two ways. The antibiotic-resistant bacteria can be transmitted to humans by food, potentially causing a wide range of infections, particularly in hospitalized patients. The other way is less direct. Bacteria from animals transmitted to humans can transfer antibiotic resistance to other bacteria causing infections in humans.
Although once the strongest and most effective antibiotic available, vancomycin is now losing its effectiveness because of increasing vancomycin-resistant bacteria. Because new drugs for treatment of humans are similar to growth promoters used in animals, the transmission of resistant bacteria from animals to humans is likely to compromise the effectiveness of these new antibiotics in treating vancomycin-resistant infections in humans.
Say the Danish veterinary researchers, "Antimicrobial drugs should not be used for growth promotion if they are used to treat humans or if they can cause resistance to antimicrobial drugs used in human medicine." They add, "Antimicrobial drugs are too valuable to be used as a tool in animal production because any antimicrobial drug may be useful for human therapy in the future even if not used therapeutically today."
For more information, contact Dr. Henrik Wegener, Danish Zoonosis Centre, Copenhagen, Denmark, 011-45-3530-0154 (tel). Access the full article at http://www.cdc.gov/EID/vol5no3/wegener.htm. All material in Emerging Infectious Diseases is in the public domain and may be used without special permission; proper citation, however, is appreciated.
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