Sorry bacon lovers, we've got some sad news about your favorite meat.
To get those sizzling strips of pork on your plate each morning takes more antibiotics than it does to make a steak burrito or a chicken sausage sandwich.
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The love of meat is exploding in Asia, and with it, comes antibiotic consumption by chickens, top, and pigs, bottom. Green represents low levels of drug used; yellow and orange are medium levels; and, red and magenta are high levels. PNAS hide caption
itoggle caption PNAS
The love of meat is exploding in Asia, and with it, comes antibiotic consumption by chickens, top, and pigs, bottom. Green represents low levels of drug used; yellow and orange are medium levels; and, red and magenta are high levels.
PNAS
Pig farmers around the world, on average, use three times as much antibiotics as cattle ranchers do, per pound of meat. Poultry farmers fall somewhere between the two.
That's one of the conclusions of a study published Thursday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. It's the first look at the amount of antibiotics used on farms around the world — and how fast consumption is growing.
The numbers reported are eye-opening.
In 2010, the world used about 63,000 tons of antibiotics each year to raise cows, chickens and pigs, the study estimated. That's roughly twice as much as the antibiotics prescribed by doctors globally to fight infections in people.
"We have huge amounts of antibiotic use in the animal sector around the world, and it's set to take off in a major way in the next two decades," says the study's senior author, Ramanan Laxminarayan, who directs the Center for Disease Dynamics Economics & Policy in Washington, D.C.
With half of the world's pigs living in China, the country tops the list as the biggest antibiotic consumer in farming.
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The European Union banned the use of antibiotics to boost animals' growth in 2006. At first, the ban had little effect on the amount of drugs given to pigs. Carsten Rehder/Corbis hide caption
itoggle caption Carsten Rehder/Corbis
The European Union banned the use of antibiotics to boost animals' growth in 2006. At first, the ban had little effect on the amount of drugs given to pigs.
Carsten Rehder/Corbis
But the U.S. isn't far behind in second place. We use about 10 percent of the world's total. Brazil, India and Germany round out the top five for consumption of farm animal consumption of antibiotics.
What frightens Laxminarayan is the huge rise in farm drug use, especially in middle-income countries. "We project in the next 20 years, world consumption antibiotics in animals will double," he says. "The implications for the effectiveness of our antibiotics could be quite devastating."
As people around the world get richer, they want to eat more meat. Who can blame them, right? But all those extra chicken wings and pork chops come primarily from factory farms.
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"These [farms] are hard to implement without drugs because a lot animals are kept very close to each other on these farms," Laxminararyan says. "The antibiotics prevent infections and encourage the animals to grow." (Scientists still aren't sure how the drugs boost animals' growth.)
At the same, drugs on farms is essentially a free-for-all.
"In most countries around the world, there's virtual no regulation for antibiotic use on the animal side, including the U.S.," Laxminararyan says. One exception is the European Union, which banned drugs to boost animal growth. Farmers there can still give animals antibiotics to prevent infections.
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Here in the U.S., there are "voluntary guidelines" for farmers but no enforced regulations. "You can actually go to the Eastern Shore in Washington and buy antibiotics in sacks, or in pounds, for your chickens" he says. "They're literally the same antibiotics you get at a pharmacy with a prescription but at a far lesser cost."
Most of the drugs in animals are used at very low concentrations, mixed with food and water. "It serves as a substitution for good hygiene and herd health on factory farms," Laxminararyan says. "But we've found that when animals have good nutrition, good genetics and there is good hygiene on the farm, the added value of antibiotics is quite minimal."
The more antibiotics used in agriculture worldwide, the more drug-resistant bacteria emerge on farms — and sewage systems and water supplies.
Pharmaceutical companies and agricultural groups say there's no evidence that these drug-resistant bacteria are a threat to people's health. And Laxminararyan agrees there's little direct evidence that antibiotics in animals hurts people.
"But the circumstantial evidence, linking use in animals to drug-resistant bacteria in humans, is exceedingly strong," he says.
Just a few years ago, scientists in Arizona showed that a methicillin-resistant strain of Staphylococcus aureus in pigs started infecting farmers. The "pig MRSA" accounts for only a small proportion of human infections worldwide. But scientists think it has the potential to spread.
antibiotics in animals
antibiotic resistance
agriculture
Global Health