Study: Antibiotics Are Overused in Livestock

Jan. 8 -- Scientists worry about the overuse of antibiotics in people, but it’s our chickens, cows and pigs that are consuming the bulk of the germ-fighting drugs, a new study says. That concerns some epidemiologists who fear the practice could lead to a proliferation of super-resistant bacteria.

In a report released today, the Union of Concerned Scientists, an advocacy group focused on science and technology, estimates that livestock are fed eight times more antibiotics than people consume. By lacing livestock food and water with antibiotics, the scientists argue, animals become hosts to drug-resistant bacteria. Those hearty bacteria can then be passed on to humans who eat their meat or who come in contact with their waste.

“The excessive use of antibiotics by the livestock industry is sobering,” said Charles Benbrook, an economist and co-author of the report about the amount of antibiotics used by the livestock industry. “Feeding antibiotics to animals from birth to slaughter may modestly improve meat industry profits, but it puts everyone’s health at risk.”

Conflicting Figures on Livestock Consumption

According to the report, 25 million pounds of antibiotics — or roughly 70 percent — of total U.S. antibiotic production are fed to animals to promote growth and disease resistance. That use has climbed from 16 million pounds in the mid-1980s to 25 million pounds today, according to the study’s authors. By comparison, humans consume only 3 million pounds of antibiotics a year.

Livestock industry representatives claim such figures are inflated. A study recently released by the Animal Health Institute, an industry group, stated that antibiotic use in the livestock industry was 17.8 million pounds — or about 50 percent less than the estimates by the UCS.

“We think their figures are greatly over-calculated,” says Carole duBois, vice president of public affairs at the Animal Health Institute. “Their estimates are based on indirect data ours are directly from the manufacturers of the product.”