Swine flu, CAFOs, and Antibiotics

There's been a lot of media attention on factory farming, which no doubt has significantly raised public awareness regarding the plight of farm animals. I just ordered "A River of Waste", a DVD on factory farms that includes Paul Shapiro and others. I've also been reading "The Real Cost of Cheap Food", an excellent article in Time Magazine. The article starts out with:

"Somewhere in Iowa, a pig is being raised in a confined pen, packed in so tightly with other swine that their curly tails have been chopped off so they won't bite one another. To prevent him from getting sick in such close quarters, he is dosed with antibiotics."

At the same time I ran across an article "Coalition Defends Animal Antibiotic Use" in Pork Magazine. An industry-based coalition, including the National Pork Producers Council, is defending its use of antibiotics in factory farms, stating:

"The coalition... holds that arguments against the use of antibiotics in livestock and poultry, including that such use contributes to human resistance, are not supported by any conclusive scientific evidence."

Really? No scientific evidence? Guess those factory farmers haven't read the gazillions of peer-reviewed scientific reports including the latest one in Johns Hopkins Magazine:

"Kellogg Schwab, director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Water and Health, refers to a typical pig farm manure lagoon that he sampled. "There were 10 million E. coli per liter [of sampled waste]. Ten million. And you have a hundred million liters in some of those pits. So you can have trillions of bacteria present, of which 89 percent are resistant to drugs. That's a massive amount that in a rain event can contaminate the environment...This development of drug resistance scares the hell out of me."



Photo courtesy of Farm Sanctuary


Coincidentally newspapers across the country today are reporting that a White House panel has issued a report warning that Swine flu could hospitalize 1.8 million Americans and kill up to 90,000 this fall, mostly children. Since the start of the Swine flu pandemic, it seems that owners of industrial hog operations have spent most of their time denying any association and trying to get media to refer to the virus as H1N1. Unfortunately for CAFOs, the CDC has confirmed that the Swine flu was first discovered in US industrial hog operations, according to Michael McGregor, MD of HSUS.

So we have a perfect storm - a Swine flu pandemic, antibiotic resistance, and factory farmers with their heads in the sand denying all responsibility, despite the fact that 70% of all antibiotics in the US. are used in factory farms. Worse yet, the CAFO industry is campaigning to kill a federal bill to phase out the routine non-therapeutic use of antibiotics in farm animals. Although antibiotics are not effective against viruses, they are a crucial weapon against virus-related secondary infections. This is alarming to me as a registered nurse and parent. My spouse, Cecil Michael, who has practiced pediatrics for over 30 years, has frequently expressed concern over the increasing number of antibiotic-resistant infections in patients, as he stated in the 2006 AZ publicity pamphlet argument supporting Prop 204 which banned confinement of farm animals (ADLA was a sponsoring organization of Prop 204):


"To sustain animals in the crowded and unnatural conditions of industrial farming, antibiotics and related drugs are used in massive quantities. This produces antibiotic-resistant bacteria, which can render drugs ineffective in protecting and saving human lives. Children especially are at high risk of infections with drug-resistant organisms linked directly to the agricultural use of antimicrobials...Hundreds of organizations, including the American Medical Association, oppose the routine use of antibiotics as feed additives."


While factory farm lobbyists continue to deny the validity of the vast mountain of peer-reviewed scientific studies, we don't have to let them have the last word. Please contact your Congressional representatives and ask them to cosponsor the Preservation of Antibiotics for Medical Treatment Act (PATMA), which has been introduced in both House and Senate. So far Rep. Raul Grijalva is the only Arizona lawmaker who has signed on to this measure. You can take action at this Pew Charitable Trusts website .

Karen Michael