Opinion Food that kills you
Why the indiscriminate use of antibiotics should be banned in agriculture and animal husbandry
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The deaths of 31 people in Europe from a little-known strain of E. coli have raised alarms worldwide,but we shouldnt be surprised. Our food often betrays us.
Just a few days ago,a 2-year-old girl in Virginia died in a hospital after suffering bloody diarrhoea linked to another strain of E. coli. Every year in the US,325,000 people are hospitalised because of food-borne illnesses and 5,000 die. Food kills one person every two hours.
Yet while the terrorist attacks of 2001 led us to transform the way we approach national security,the deaths of almost twice as many people annually have still not generated basic food-safety initiatives. We have an industrial farming system that is a marvel for producing cheap food,but its lobbyists block initiatives to make food safer.
Perhaps the most disgraceful aspect of our agricultural system I say this as an Oregon farmboy who once raised sheep,cattle and hogs is the way antibiotics are recklessly stuffed into healthy animals to make them grow faster. Eighty per cent of antibiotics in the US go to livestock,not humans. And 90 per cent of the livestock antibiotics are administered in their food or water,typically to healthy animals to keep them from getting sick when they are confined in squalid and crowded conditions.
This cavalier use of low-level antibiotics creates a perfect breeding ground for antibiotic-resistant pathogens. The upshot is that ailments can become pretty much untreatable. Antibiotic resistance has multiple causes that are difficult to unravel. Doctors overprescribe them. Patients misuse them. But looking at numbers,by far the biggest element of overuse is agriculture.
Vegetarians may think that theyre immune,but theyre not. E. coli originates in animals but can spill into water used to irrigate vegetables,contaminating them. The European E. coli outbreak apparently arose from bean sprouts grown on an organic farm in Germany. One of the most common antibiotic-resistant pathogens is MRSA,which now kills more Americans annually than AIDS and adds hugely to Americas medical costs. MRSA has many variants,and one of the more benign forms now is widespread in hog barns and among people who deal with hogs.
The European outbreak should shake people up. It points to the whole broken system, notes Robert Martin of the Pew Environment Group. We need more comprehensive inspections in the food system,more testing for additional strains of E. coli,and more public education (always wash your hands after touching raw meat,and dont use the same cutting board for meat and vegetables).
A great place to start reforms would be by banning the feeding of antibiotics to healthy livestock.
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