Source: Rita Jane Gabbett, MEATINGPLACE, 12/26/11



“There are times when science cannot help us make a decision,” Iowa Sate University professor Scott Hurd warned at the outset of a two-day National Institute for Animal Agriculture (NIAA) conference in October dedicated to the antibiotics debate. “Rather than solving the political debate, science is often used as ammunition.”

Meatingplace sat down with Hurd during the conference to find out more.

Do you believe food animal producers should be doing anything differently in the way they are using antibiotics?
I think they do need to think more carefully. Some of them may be in the habit of feeding medicated feed forever. They need to rethink that, evaluate and maybe run some comparisons. Certainly if they are doing any antimicrobial feeding without input from a veterinarian, they need to rethink that.

In your opinion, what have been the biggest changes in antibiotics use by producers over the past five years?
The pork and poultry people over the past 10 years have definitely reduced the amount they are using. In poultry, they rarely use any feed antibiotics, period. The pork folks, because of the Pork Quality Assurance Program, are using less. Virtually all of them have a veterinarian involved and are doing periodic reviews, which are carefully looked at often by the veterinarians and that is a change.

Can you give an example of antibiotic resistance transfer between food animals and humans?
The specific examples are not to be found. It is theoretical that antibiotic use is causing human resistance and harm. The specific cases people can point to are very rare. There was a case of salmonella in some cattle and a child of the veterinarian having the same type. Those may happen. We also have cases where a farmer gets a resistant staph infection from his pigs. But those are occupational hazards, as a result of working on a farm. They are not food related. The (August) turkey salmonella recall might be an example of a resistant strain that was passed from animals to humans. What we don’t know is whether that resistant strain was caused by antibiotic use. The other part is, we don’t know that those people had any more severe an illness because it was a resistant strain.

You have also warned about an association between animals getting ill because antibiotics were not used and illnesses in humans. Can you give an example?
We have found that if you bring an animal into the slaughterhouse and it has some adhesions, evidence of respiratory infection, those animals tend to have more contamination with salmonella or campylobacter. It is indirect, but we are measuring more pathogens on the meat. It may or may not make more people sick. What FSIS is concerned with is the amount of pathogens on the meat as a risk to humans.'

What do you see as the biggest misconception about antibiotics use in food animal production?
Generally consumers and anti-animal agriculture groups think it is being used without good reason. They think it is just being poured into the feed to make the animals grow better.   

Part of the debate is over whether limiting antibiotics use in food animals should be voluntary, as it is now, or mandatory. What is your take on that?
FDA is doing the industry a favor by giving it lots of chances and opportunities to get our house in order before they decide if they are going to do something (regulatory) about it.  The first place additional rules may come is in the area of veterinary oversight. So we could enter an age like in Europe where you do not administer an antibiotic without veterinary involvement. I am getting signals now that will be the first chink in the armor they will go after.

Is meat the major transfer point of antibiotic-resistant pathogens to humans?
That is a very good question, because we don’t know if it is the major one or not. There are other routes. There is the environmental route. Birds may pick up the bacteria and move it from one farm to another. We do know when FDA asks a drug company to do a risk assessment they encourage them to focus on the meat-borne route. The assumption is that meat is the primary route. I think it is a pretty good assumption, but it is just that – an assumption.

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