|
To: US Farm Crisis <usfarmcrisis@lists.iatp.org>
From: mritchie@iatp.org
Date: 2004-09-02 07:38:06
Subject: Poultry farms' use of antibiotics raises concerns about drug-resistant germs
Poultry farms' use of antibiotics raises concerns about drug-resistant germs Hopkins researcher studying effect on humans, environment By Tom Pelton Sun Staff Originally published August 31, 2004 Donald Ross worked for years in poultry plants on the Eastern Shore, hanging
chickens on hooks, weighing them, packing them and wielding a knife in the
"kill room." About four months ago, he nicked the middle finger on his left hand. The
tiny cut should have healed quickly, but it ballooned instead into a
festering golf ball-size lesion. Months of antibiotic treatments failed to
shrink it, and it had to be surgically removed. Ross, 46, and a Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health researcher
suspect his infection was caused by drug-resistant bacteria in chickens at
the Temperanceville, Va., plant where he worked. They point to the poultry
industry's routine use of millions of pounds of antibiotics to make chickens
plumper. Toxicologist Ellen K. Silbergeld plans to include Ross among more than 100
current and former Eastern Shore poultry handlers in a study of whether the
industry's growing use of antibiotics is harming human health and the
environment. Although Ross' injury was minor, Silbergeld says it hints at a broader
problem: that antibiotics in chicken feed might be creating tough,
drug-resistant bacteria that cling to workers' hands and wash off farms into
rivers. Other researchers have found that antibiotic-resistant bacteria are
making their way into meat sold in grocery stores. "This is a very serious issue. I believe there is a lot of
antibiotic-resistant bacteria that is getting out into the community and
into the environment, and nobody is paying attention to what it's doing,"
said Silbergeld, who has also studied lead poisoning in Baltimore and
mercury contamination in the Amazon. Antibiotics in animal feed have become a national concern, with McDonald's
restaurants recently pledging to work with poultry suppliers to phase out
growth-promoting antibiotics that are also used in human medicine. The drugs are a significant issue for the poultry industry on the Delmarva
peninsula, which last year included 1,900 farms selling 576 million chickens
that were processed by 14,100 workers. Richard L. Lobb, spokesman for the National Chicken Council, a trade group
that represents companies that process most of the 8.7 billion chickens sold
in the United States every year, defended the industry's use of antibiotics. Farmers have been routinely adding microbe-killing formulas to chicken feed
since the 1950s, Lobb said. When a few birds develop bacterial infections, farmers add antibiotics such
as virginiamycin and tetracycline to the drinking water of an entire flock,
which can often exceed 200,000 birds, Lobb said. Farmers then wait a number
of days specified by the drug makers before selling the birds to prevent
medications from being passed on in the meat, he said. "There's been a lot of rhetoric about this issue, but there's not a lot of
science to back it up," Lobb said. "Decades of use of virginiamycin in
animals, for example, has resulted in no impact on human health." But representatives of poultry workers insist that there is a link between
workers' health problems and antibiotics. Pilot study A pilot study Silbergeld conducted on 60 poultry workers in the areas of
Pocomoke City and Georgetown, Del., two years ago found that 80 percent of
them were carrying bacteria from the intestines of chickens. And 60 percent
of the workers had antibiotic-resistant strains of the bacteria, compared to
10 percent of the general population in those locations, she said. Her new study will involve interviews with current and former workers,
examinations of their medical records, lungs, blood and stool samples. She
will also study some of their family members and neighbors to determine how
often they suffer stomach or intestinal illnesses. To assess the impact on the environment, Silbergeld is also testing catfish
caught in the Pocomoke River for antibiotic-resistant bacteria. The presence
of the bacteria would be evidence that microbes from chicken manure are
being washed into the river from farms, which use the manure as fertilizer. By sampling bacteria from the hands of fishermen, Silbergeld hopes to
discover if they are also being exposed to drug-resistant bacteria from
chicken farms. Of the first 15 catfish she and her colleagues caught, four had
drug-resistant strains of bacteria with the same genetic markings as germs
found in chicken intestines. "There are about a billion chickens being raised on the Delmarva peninsula,
and each of them produces about 2.5 pounds of waste. That's 2.5 billion
pounds of waste going out into the environment," Silbergeld said. "We're
basically following the bacteria in the chicken waste." A 2001 study by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the University of
Maryland found that a fifth of 200 samples of ground chicken, beef, turkey
and pork sold in supermarkets in the Washington area were contaminated by
salmonella, which causes food poisoning. And 84 percent of these bacteria
samples were resistant to antibiotics. Other scientists are investigating whether the bacteria and drugs are
seeping into ground water on the Eastern Shore, Silbergeld said. The Union of Concerned Scientists reported recently that the annual use of
antibiotics in the food and drink of healthy farm animals grew from 16
million pounds in the mid-1980s to 25 million pounds in 2001. That total was
more than eight times the 3 million pounds of antibiotics used to treat
humans for diseases that year. The nonprofit scientific advocacy group outlined the dangers of excessive
use of antibiotics in a recent report. "As more bacterial strains develop
resistance [to the drugs], more people will die because ... the bacteria
causing the disease are resistant to all available antibiotics," the report
said. Beth McGee, a senior scientist with the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, said that
research she conducted in 2000 and 2001 found antibiotics from chicken
manure in tributaries to the Nanticoke River and other waterways on the
Eastern Shore. "One concern is the potential impact on aquatic resources. Will fish get
sick more if there are really virulent forms of bacteria out there?" McGee
asked. "But the more pressing concern is the public health impact." Workers' ailments Carole Morison, executive director of the Delmarva Poultry Justice Alliance,
a nonprofit organization that lobbies for better working conditions for
poultry workers, said many farmers and laborers have complained about
frequent stomach and intestinal ailments that didn't respond to drugs. Many
workers are afraid to speak out because they worry they'll be fired, Morison
said. "This [study] is important work, because for a long time, people who worked
around chickens were always saying, 'I got a touch of the bug again,'" said
Morison, who owns a 54,400-chicken farm in Worcester County. "But they were
having this bug six, eight, 10 times a year, which isn't normal. It's just
too much of people being sick." Ross, who lives in Wattsville, Va., said he earned $9.05 an hour at his job.
He worked from 4:45 a.m. to 1:45 p.m. at the plant, hanging chickens on
hooks after they tumbled out of a machine that scalded them to loosen their
feathers. It was a "nasty job," Ross said, adding he contracted several infections in
his hands and fingers. Silbergeld said she has examined documents and photos detailing Ross'
infections. "I have looked at his medical records, and they clearly say he
had repeated drug-resistant infections in his hands," said Silbergeld. Ross said he missed about three months of work because of his recent
infection and surgery. This absence contributed to an argument with his
supervisor and his dismissal on Aug. 19, he said. "I had four infections like that, and you know, I've known other workers
who've gotten sick, too," said Ross. "This is something that should be
looked into ... because this food we're handling is going out to the public.
People eat this stuff." Copyright © 2004, The Baltimore Sun | Get home delivery
| 
