Antimicrobial Resistance

I’ll try not to get too much on a soapbox here, but I feel very strongly about the antimicrobial use in livestock debates that are raging right now.

The gist of the argument from people like the Infectious Disease Society of America and Katie Couric is that livestock producers are using antibiotics willy-nilly in their livestock and that this is contributing to antibiotic resistances that we’re seeing in human medicine.

I have several problems with this assertion. For one, I don’t think that livestock producers are using antibiotics willy-nilly. It isn’t in their economic best interest to do so! They have narrow profit margins on a per animal basis, so they tend to only treat when there’s some kind of economic benefit. The argument they make back here is that “growth promotant” antibiotics are used to treat subclinical protozoal parasite infections. My response to that is that is a subclinical infection and the animals are healthier without the parasites.

For two, why are they so uptight about antibiotic use in animals? Have they looked at the use of antibiotics in human medicine lately? Most doctors throw antibiotics at people when they come in for the sniffles. Also, most people don’t complete their antibiotic courses. So, my general feeling here is that while veterinarians do probably need to clean up their act with regards to prudent use of antibiotics, those human medicine folk need to clean their own house before they complain about our dusting.