in food and environment    Hogging It! executive summary

Far more antibiotics and other antimicrobials* may be used for animals on US farms than previously suspected. A UCS report released in January estimates that 70 percent of the antibiotics produced in the United States are fed to chickens, pigs, and cows not to treat disease but for nontherapeutic purposes such as growth promotion.

The report — Hogging It: Estimates of Antimicrobial Abuse in Livestock — is also the first to show that the amount of antibiotics used in animal agriculture dwarfs that used in human medicine. Nontherapeutic use in chickens, pigs, and cows accounts for eight times more antibiotics than human medicine, which uses only about 3 million pounds per year.

Mounting evidence indicates that, as a result of this intensive, widespread use, many bacteria have become resistant to these drugs. If we are to preserve the effectiveness of antibiotics to treat human disease, eliminating this overuse is an obvious place to start.

What We Found
The amount of antibiotics used in animal agriculture is enormous. As Figure 1 [below] illustrates, UCS estimates that 24.6 million pounds of antibiotics are fed to healthy livestock for nontherapeutic uses, that is, to speed growth and to prevent disease. If antibiotics used to treat sick livestock were included, the amount would be even greater.

The amount of antibiotics fed to healthy livestock dwarfs the amount used to treat people. As shown in Figure 2, our estimates suggest that eight times more antibiotics are used for nontherapeutic purposes in the three major livestock sectors than in human medicine.

Antibiotics important in human medicine, such as tetracycline, penicillin, and erythromycin, are used extensively in healthy livestock. Cattle, swine, and poultry are routinely given antibiotics throughout their lives. Many of the antibiotics they consume are important in human medicine. The European Union has banned growth-promoting uses of antibiotics that are important in human medicine. We estimate that each year US livestock producers feed healthy livestock about 13.5 million pounds of antibiotics the EU has banned.

Primarily due to increases in use with poultry, the amount of antibiotics fed to healthy livestock appears to have risen by about 50 percent since 1985. We estimate that antibiotic use for healthy livestock grew from 16.1 million pounds in the mid-1980s to 24.6 million pounds today, as Figure 3 shows. In poultry, nontherapeutic use increased from 2 million to 10.5 million pounds, a dramatic 307 percent increase per bird. Growth in the size of the industry accounted for about two-fifths of the overall increase.

Previous estimates of the total amount of antibiotics used for animals may be drastic underestimates. A 2000 study released by the Animal Health Institute (AHI) gives 17.8 million pounds for animal use of antibiotics, based on an undisclosed methodology. At 24.6 million pounds, our estimate is almost 40 percent higher — and ours includes only antibiotics fed to healthy animals in the three major livestock sectors. AHI's covers use for all purposes — to treat illness, to prevent it, and to speed growth — and for all animals, not just cattle, swine, and poultry.

The availability of data on antibiotics used as pesticides for fruit and vegetables demonstrates that such information can be obtained without unduly burdening either agricultural producers or the pharmaceutical industry. We readily obtained several years of data on the amount of antibiotics used as crop pesticides. The US Department of Agriculture compiles these data from producer surveys each year.

What Should Happen Now
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) should establish a system requiring companies that sell antibiotics for use in livestock to report annually on the quantity sold during the year.

The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) should improve the completeness and accuracy of its periodic surveys of antibiotic use in livestock production.

The FDA, USDA, and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) should move quickly to implement a recent government action plan — A Public Health Action Plan to Combat Antimicrobial Resistance — which calls for establishing a national monitoring and surveillance system that incorporates appropriate protection for proprietary information.

Margaret Mellon is the director of UCS's Food & Environment Program. Steven Fondriest is the program's communications and outreach specialist.

Action Alert: Create a National Antibiotic Production Reporting System ISSUE: The overuse of antibiotics in agriculture is contributing tothe rise in drug resistance in microorganisms such as Salmonella and Campylobacter — foodborne bacteria that can cause human illnesses. But as scientists begin to design a strategy to curtail antibiotic use, they are finding that the data provided by the federal government and industry are far too incomplete to develop effective responses to theUCS has attempted to address this lack of data by calculating antibiotic use in US agriculture in our new report Hogging It! While our calculations are the best available to date, they are only estimates. What's needed is a government-based system to collect the data and make it available. The Food and Drug Administration has proposed such a system, but there are no guarantees that Bush administration officials at the FDA will view this as a priority. problem of antibiotic resistance. ACTION: Let the FDA know that you want public health protected and that requires clear information about how much antibiotics are used in agriculture. Here are some points to cover: • The FDA needs to safeguard public health from the loss of antibiotics due to drug resistance. • The agency should quickly implement a national antibiotic-production reporting system. • Any reporting system should include information on the amount of drugs sold, broken out by drug class, method of delivery, and intended use. Send a letter or email to: Office of the Commissioner, Food and Drug Administration, 5600 Fishers Lane, Rockville, MD 20857, execsec@oc.fda.gov. Or send an email or fax from the UCS website (www.ucsaction.org)

A Data Shortage Developing public health policy to combat antibioticresistant disease requires accurate data to answer such questions as: • What is the total amount of antibiotics used each year in the United States? • How much of this is used to treat human disease? • How much is used in animal agriculture? • How much is used to treat sick animals and how much to promote their growth? • How much of each major class of antibiotics is used as supplements to animal feed or water? • Is agricultural use increasing? By how much? • Which agricultural uses are most likely to contribute to problems in treating human disease? The data to answer these questions are not available in the public record — not from the livestock or pharmaceutical industries, not from the Food and Drug Administration, not from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. To fill this gap, UCS developed a method for estimating antibiotic usage based on the data that were available: numbers of livestock animals, recommended uses of antibiotics, and dosage.