We learned last weekend in a front-page New York Times story that the United States poultry industry has quietly begun to "bow to the demands of public health and consumer groups" by significantly reducing the use of antibiotics that are fed to healthy chickens. Antibiotics have been used for decades as a means of preventing infection in chickens and promoting an accelerated pattern of growth.
Is this move in the interest of promoting public health? And will consumers pay a price for the elimination of these chemicals?
The answer to the first question is a mixed one. For years, scientists have speculated about a theoretical chain of events which would cause ingestion of treated chicken to promote human resistance to a variety of modern day antibiotics. Many well-respected scientists, some of whom sit on the ACSH Board of Advisors, agree with this speculation and thus would applaud the withdrawal of antibiotics from animal feed. Other respected scientists, again including some on the ACSH Board, disagree and feel that the efficient use of regulated levels of antibiotics in poultry feed not only protects the health of the chickens but keeps the food supply plentiful, without any known impact on human antibiotic resistance.
But regardless of which side you are on there is the second question: What is the impact on consumers of this quiet withdrawal of a form of agricultural technology which has been practiced for decades? Not only was this question not answered in the Times piece, but a spokesman for Tyson gave the Times a curious quote: " We looked at the cost-benefit ratio of antibiotics and determined we could just as effectively do it without them...if we can raise birds without doing it [using antibiotics], why do it?".
Given that the antibiotics used in poultry feed cost producers a significant amount of money, one must assume that the producers derived substantial benefits from these veterinary drugs.
That means readers of the Times story should ask one of the following questions:
(a) Are we really to conclude that these antibiotics in animal feed never had any useful function that made production easier and thus benefited the consumer, and if that's the case, why were poultry antibiotics standard procedure for so many years at great cost to producers?
Or:
(b) If antibiotics fed to healthy chickens made chicken production more efficient and less subject to disease in the course of production, what new costs or new risks are consumers now assuming as a result of the withdrawal of antibiotic treatment?
Will chicken now become less plentiful and inevitably cost more as a result of reduced supplies and more labor-intensive techniques? Or should we just accept the strange implicit premise shared by the Times reporter and the public relations-minded Tyson representative: that an extensively practiced form of veterinary medicine was utilized for most of this century in the poultry industry for absolutely no purpose whatsoever and thus when withdrawn has for consumers no negative consequences of any type?
It's hard to weigh risks and make intelligent decisions in matters of health and matters of economics if we aren't honest about the costs involved.
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| Responses:
February 22, 2002 I heard that Memorial Sloan-Kettering hospital told cancer patients to avoid meat from animals treated with extra hormones. The reason is that there is a link between these hormones and cancer. They aren't worried about antibiotics or pesticides, but they take the hormones seriously. Ever since I heard this from a friend who lost her mother and sister to breast cancer, I have spent the extra money to buy organic meats. There are also theories that added hormones in meats cause early puberty in girls. Anne ACSH nutrition expert Dr. Ruth Kava replies: Word of mouth reports need to be verified; I have never heard that the hospital has such a stance on meat. In fact, the MSKCC website's nutrition advice doesn't even mention hormones in meat. They do recommend a low-fat diet and a limit on saturated fat ( see: http://www.mskcc.org/mskcc/html/3101.cfm). According to the beef producers' trade association, the amounts of hormones one might expect to find in beef from supplements are much smaller than what the animal produces itself ( see: http://www.beef.org/library/handbook/safety.htm). The reason hormones are used is that the animals gain weight faster and are leaner than they would otherwise be. The levels of hormones in beef from cattle who have been treated is minuscule compared to the levels that humans produce themselves, and the increased levels are not very different from those in meat from untreated animals. For example, according to beef producersà data, 3 oz. of beef from an untreated animal would contain about 1.3 nanograms of estrogen, while a similar amount of meat from a treated animal would contain about 1.9 nanograms (one nanogram is one one-billionth of a gram). By contrast, a non-pregnant woman would produce in the neighborhood of half a million nanograms of estrogen per day. The early-puberty theory is very doubtful. First, there is no scientific consensus that early puberty is indeed occurring widely in girls (see ACSH's Priorities article on that topic). It is more likely that if early puberty is becoming more common, it is linked to the greater body weight and fat we've been seeing in young girls over the last couple of decades. February 22, 2002 I applaud the intention of the poultry industry to reduce the use of antibiotics, but for me itÃs for purely personal reasons. Strange as it may seem, I seem to be intensely allergic to some antibiotic that is used in chicken production. Within ten minutes of eating regular commercial chicken, I am in extreme intestinal distress. This does not occur when I eat organically-grown chicken or free-range chicken (alas, both at a hefty price tag). It also doesn't occur with other poultry products such as turkey (which, I have been assured by a turkey farmer, actually uses different feed additives). So let Tyson remove the antibiotics! To me, a small increase in price would not come close to the price I've otherwise had to pay to eat chicken. DUKESCV April 8, 2003 Of course antibiotics in meat serve a function! When you have animals squeezed into unhealthy conditions, they would get sick without subtherapeutic levels of drugs. Change the conditions and the drugs won't be needed! Deborah J. Garretson |