Most Recent Posts

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.

i

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.

i

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.

The Salt

Antibiotic Use On The Farm: Are We Flying Blind?

"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.

The Salt

How Using Antibiotics In Animal Feed Creates Superbugs

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

There's a researcher at the RAND Corporation who has been building a reputation as a curmudgeonly skeptic when it comes to trendy ways to fight America's obesity epidemic.

First, Roland Sturm took aim at the idea that "food deserts" — areas without well-stocked grocery stores — cause unhealthy diets and obesity. His studies found that they do not. When Los Angeles decided in 2008 to ban new fast-food restaurants in some of the city's poorest neighborhood, Sturm was skeptical that it would help lower obesity rates.

Now Sturm, an economist, has taken a close look at what LA's fast-food ban has accomplished. He concludes in new paper published online by the journal Social Science & Medicine that there's no evidence it had any effect at all. In fact, obesity rates in South Los Angeles and other neighborhoods the law was aimed at increased faster than in other parts of the city or other parts of the county.

The Salt

Have Big-Box Superstores Helped To Make Us Fat?

The Salt

What Will Make The Food Desert Bloom?

Advocates of the measure saw it as a powerful tool to help improve diets. Opponents, like fast-food chains, said "the sky is falling," Sturm tells The Salt. In reality, he says, "this has had no measurable impact."

In part, he says, it's because the fast-food ban took aim at an inconsequential target. It merely blocked new construction or expansion of "stand-alone fast-food" restaurants. Yet Sturm found that in South LA, the area covered by the ban, free-standing restaurants are relatively uncommon. They are far outnumbered by restaurants in strip malls and small food shops such as corner stores, none of which are restricted by the new city ordinance.

In the years since the ordinance was enacted, he says, the distribution of food outlets in this part of LA has remained more or less the same. Small corner stores are common, and so are fast-food restaurants in strip malls. No new free-standing fast-food restaurants have opened, but they were rare to start with.

Finally, he says, "social norms have not changed, either." Surveys of diet and obesity show no changes that can be attributed to the new fast-food restrictions. Fast-food consumption and obesity rates continued to increase in all areas of LA from 2007 to 2011-2012, and the increase was greatest in the areas affected by the fast-food restrictions. There was one notable exception: Soda consumption declined, but this was true across the city, not just in South LA.

Barry Popkin, a professor of global nutrition at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, says he wasn't surprised at all by Sturm's observations. "That little ban was just too trivial," he tells The Salt. Many studies have now concluded that physical access to food "is less important than people think."

"Trivial" not how Kelly Brownell, a professor of public policy, psychology and neuroscience at Duke University, characterizes it, though. "I would not agree that this was a trivial measure, as it could be precedent setting, and in communities without many fast food restaurants, setting limits could help prevent problems," Brownell writes in an email. But he says he also wasn't surprised that the ban wasn't effective.

Sturm says he never set out to be an obesity policy killjoy. "I have no horse in that race, I care about getting facts right," he says. He admits, though, that the notion of supermarket proximity reducing obesity "always seemed fishy" even before he looked at the data.

And sometimes, he says, altering aspects of food environment can affect diets and obesity. He's come to the conclusion, for instance, that food prices matter. He's analyzed data from the U.S. and from South Africa, and in both cases, when fruits and vegetables were cheaper, people ate more of them, compared to less-healthy foods.

Popkin agrees. Diets won't change significantly, he says, "until we start changing the relative price of food," making nutritious food more affordable.

fast food

obesity

Los Angeles

Fitness & Nutrition

Low oil prices are causing a drop in new drilling and exploration in North Dakota, but not as much as you might expect.

Take the boom town of Watford City, over in the northwestern corner of the state and in the heart of the Bakken oil patch. Its population has tripled since 2010, and today, continues to climb.

SERIES: The Great Plains Oil Rush

A massive oil boom is dramatically transforming North Dakota's western plains.

When I visited a year ago for our series on the Great Plains Oil Rush, the price of oil was above $100 a barrel. When I went back recently — with the headlines warning of a crash coming fresh in my mind — it was below $50; a 50 percent decrease in a year. I figured I'd come upon empty hotels, the skeletons of half-built condos and people out of work ...

Yeah, not so much.

'Still Hiring'

My hotel room still cost about $200 a night. The Cashwise grocery store was still packed with roustabout men hauling out cases of Red Bull and boxes of Hungry Jack pancake mix (just about every state in the nation was represented via the license plates in the parking lot). And outside town, the drill rigs were still lighting up the frozen prairie like Christmas trees.

If there's a slowdown in North Dakota, it isn't really being felt in Watford City.

"I think it's still growing," said Ashley Bones. "There are still people buying homes and a lot of people coming in here still looking for jobs."

A view of the main street in downtown Watford City, which is usually bustling as people shop and work. David Gilkey/NPR hide caption

itoggle caption David Gilkey/NPR

I met Bones, 28, in the airy lobby of a local bank where she works as a loan officer. She told me that she moved to Watford City from Wyoming two years ago to be closer to her Dad. Well, that, and the promise of good jobs.

"They're still hiring," she said. "There are still signs for $14 an hour, $17 an hour at Walmart."

Most nights Bones also helps out with the bookkeeping for the oil field services company her husband works at. The two met here a year ago. He came from Oregon. And one telltale sign that the oil boom is still cruising along here is that the couple rents a trailer for $2,000 a month. And they consider that a deal.

"It's about a thousand dollars a room right now [in town], it's been like that ever since I got here," Bones said. "It's not going down any, in fact, some are going up."

Growing Pains

Make no mistake, you definitely still detect some anxiety in Watford City about what might happen in the next few months if oil prices stay where they are, or drop further. There are stories about layoffs and some businesses in town closing.

After all, the number of active drilling rigs — the "rig count" as the industry tracks it — has dropped by 40 percent compared to this time last year in North Dakota. But you have to remember that last year set records. And the most oil-rich parts of the Bakken formation happen to lie beneath Watford City. That's why production is actually increasing, despite the low oil prices, and it's why the situation over at the schools seems unchanged in the year since I last visited.

At the elementary school, the friendly assistant principal, Kerry Stansfield, showed me a crowded gym — students were having recess inside because it was below -10 wind chill. Next it was a quick peek at modular homes that many of the teachers have to live in. Then it was over to see four portable classrooms where the third grades are packed into.

"We've had to remodel this several times," Stansfield told me.

i

Ashley Bones talks to her stepdaughter, Faith, as she picks her up from elementary school in Watford City, N.D. David Gilkey/NPR hide caption

itoggle caption David Gilkey/NPR

Ashley Bones talks to her stepdaughter, Faith, as she picks her up from elementary school in Watford City, N.D.

David Gilkey/NPR

Like Watford City's population, the school district's enrollment has tripled in five years. And they're planning for it to grow another 50 percent in the next five years. Last Spring, voters approved a plan to build a new high school. It was a big relief around here.

"We're going to be moving," Stansfield said. "High school is going to the new high school, middle school is going to stay at the old high school."

A Slow Down Ahead?

One thing that has changed with oil prices being more volatile is that teachers and staff are seeing more of what they call "boomerang kids." That is, those that are here for five or six weeks at a time, then their parent heads to another oil field down south, then, they're back.

Sometimes teachers like Pam Moen only get one or two days notice.

Business

Low Oil Prices Could Stall Explosive Growth In Montana Boom Town

West Virginia Derailment Raises Concerns About Volatility Of Bakken Oil

4 min 14 sec

Add to Playlist

Download

"It's a challenge," she says. "A lot of spots, spottiness, with what they've learned and where we're at."

A native of North Dakota, Moen moved to Watford City after spending more than a decade teaching in the Las Vegas area. She taught through the housing boom, then bust, there. Like a lot of people, she doesn't see a bust happening around here.

"We're not really seeing the slow down here, necessarily, in Mackenzie County," Moen said. "I think we still have 50 plus rigs drilling right now, it's just busy where I live."

Busy and still growing, that definitely sums up life in Watford City right now. But at the same time, it's easy to see why people like Moen maybe wouldn't mind a bit of a slowdown. It would give them a chance to breathe a little, to catch up.

oil prices

The graying city mayor agrees to meet a few hours before he heads to the battlefront. He is haggard after living in exile since June, when the Islamic State, also known as ISIS, swept into his city — al-Sharqat, Iraq, a hour's drive north of Tikrit.

Ali Dodah al-Jabouri has a reason for fight: Islamic State militants killed his brother and 18 other relatives. But as part of a prominent Sunni Arab tribe, he is joining an unusual alliance with Iraqi Shiite militias backed and armed by Iran.

i

Al-Shargat Mayor Ali Dodah Khalaf Jabouri sits with Hani Abdul Karem Jabouri and Sabri Ahmed Jabouri. Each lost family members who were killed by Islamic State fighters, and all are now working with Iran-backed Shiite groups to retake their city. Deborah Amos/NPR hide caption

itoggle caption Deborah Amos/NPR

Al-Shargat Mayor Ali Dodah Khalaf Jabouri sits with Hani Abdul Karem Jabouri and Sabri Ahmed Jabouri. Each lost family members who were killed by Islamic State fighters, and all are now working with Iran-backed Shiite groups to retake their city.

Deborah Amos/NPR

He was once fought Iran in a long and costly war an officer in Saddam Hussein's army. Now, he is changing his business suit for a military uniform to take part in the assault on Tikrit in the Sunni heartland. Tikrit is well known as the birthplace of ousted dictator Saddam Hussein, but the fighting force is predominantly Shiites. Sunni tribes are a token force.

Jabouri says that the Islamic State is a common enemy, and that Tehran gained his loyalty because Iran has put boots on the ground and offered support while the Americans dithered.

"The Americans gave us nothing," he says. "No one helped us when ISIS came — not American, not Turkey. But Iran helped us, with guns, tanks and rockets."

There is a wide consensus from Baghdad to Washington that the best way — and possibility the only way — to defeat the Islamic State is to turn at least part of the Sunni Arab community against the militants, but so far the Jabouri tribe represents a minority. Many Sunnis have not risen against the Islamic State, out of fear, self-interest, or because they see the Shiite militias as even a worse option than ISIS.

Jabouri says the Shiite militias have gained momentum against the militants, pushing them out of Sunni areas south of Tikrit.

His city, al-Sharqat is a victim of the Islamic State and geography, located on a highway between the larger urban centers of Mosul, which the militants captured in June, and Tikrit. They've declared al-Sharqat part of their self-declared Islamic caliphate.

More militants have arrived in al-Sharqat recently, on a northward retreat from pro-government forces hitting Tikrit. Jabouri says he's going back to his city to kill them.

A decade ago the Jabouri tribe fought al-Qaida militants alongside Americans. Many Jabouris joined the Sunni Awakening movement organized and funded by the U.S. military. This time, Jabouri says he's fighting alongside Iraq's Shiite militias and the Iranians because they are willing to fight ISIS now.

"The Americans said we need two years" to liberate Tikrit and Mosul, says Jabouri. The Shiite militias and their Iranian advisers launched an offensive in early March.

The Tikrit assault reflects the influence Iran wields in Baghdad. Tehran set the date for the military campaign, according to Western sources, and helped train and arm the militias — paramilitary groups organized under a secretive Iraqi government group called the Popular Mobilization Committee, or Hashid Shaabi.

But as the militias have pushed out the Islamic State militants, there has been a major snag — Shiite revenge attacks, documented with photos. One particularly gruesome image that appeared on Twitter showed a Shia militiaman posing with the severed head of an ISIS fighter.

A Human Rights Watch report this week documents looting and burning of civilian homes in Sunni villages — charges the paramilitary commanders vigorously deny.

Washington has warned Baghdad of funding cuts if the militias are not reigned in. Baghdad has finally gotten the message, says Zaid al-Ali, author of "The Struggle for Iraq's Future"

The Two-Way

Militants Reportedly Overrun Tikrit, As 500,000 Flee Mosul

In Iraq, The Final Battle For Tikrit Is Likely To Be The Hardest

4 min 30 sec

Add to Playlist

Download

Months After Atrocities In Tikrit, Iraqi Parents Demand Answers

3 min 53 sec

Add to Playlist

Download

Shiite Militias In Iraq: Savior Or Menace?

"The prime minister made a very negative statement about criminal elements within the Popular Mobilization Forces," al-Ali says. "He made big deal that they will be punished."

It's a crucial message for the major battles to come, he says, especially in Islamic State-controlled Mosul, where there are more than a million mostly Sunni civilians who view Shiite-dominated Baghdad with fear and distrust.

"If there are terrible abuses in Tikrit, then of course ISIS will thrive on that — and they will tell people in Mosul 'this is what is going to happen to you,' " al-Ali says. "Whereas if people are allowed to go back home in Tikrit and the city doesn't suffer terribly, it will send a powerful message to Mosul: 'This is the right side of the battle.' "

Police General Ali al-Jabouri believes he is on the right side of the battle. He's been fighting in Tikrit, another member of the Jabouri tribe who has sided with Shiite militias in the fight against ISIS. General Jabouri says he's heard about Washington's complaints.

"I don't think they have the full picture," he says. "I know who killed my brother, but I'm not going to make any trouble with civilians. Now, maybe the militias don't know that."

The Shiite militias and the charges of abuse are now a concern across Iraq, but for these members of the Jabouri trip, the fight against ISIS is a higher priority.

Islamic State

Tikrit

Sunnis

Shiites

Iran

Iraq