Bugs on Your Meat - A Trending Topic This Week

"First line antibiotics were no longer curing basic infections,

and doctors were concerned.  I thought, 'Wow this is obvioiusly

crazy, I have to do something about this.'"

- Dr. Lance Price (George Washington Univ., Washington, DC)

- Sabrina Tavernise (New York Times, 29 July 2013)

In yesterday's post, I discussed how the use of antibiotics in livestock feed is becoming a mainstream topic; that it is no longer relegated to the peer reviewed scientific journals.  We then took a look at a recent article from C&EN that nicely summed up some of the most current scientific research and legislative action addressing the issue.  My take away: consumers are increasingly leaning towards antibiotic-free meat when they shop (relatively speaking), but would the fledgling market pressure really cause agribusiness to braodly change the way it raises livestock before the antibiotic resistant bugs they are breeding take over the world?  [Zombie apocalypse, remember?]

Well, every once in a while, life finds a way of totally validating your world view (uh huh...).  This happened to me today when I was perusing the latest Science Times section of the New York Times, where the topic of antibiotic use in animal husbandry got some front page (below the fold... a-hem) attention.  In an article titled "Tracing Germs Through the Aisles", NY Times journalist Sabrina Tavernise reports on work being done in the laboratory of Dr. Lance Price (quoted above).  His team has been purchasing all brands and types of meat at the major supermarkets in Flagstaff, AZ, where his lab is based, and testing for a specific strain of antibiotic resistant E. coli that is a major causative agent of urinary tract infections in women.  The question: are women contracting the bug from the meat they are buying at the grocery store?  The article tells us to look for the results of the study this fall.  If Dr. Price's team concludes that contaminated meat is causing drug-resistant disease in the consumer population, it will go one step further than the studies we discussed in my post yesterday, where bugs were observed to be transmitted between live animals and livestock workers.  Watch this space.  

The article also referenced the legislative actions Rep. Lousie Slaughter (D-NY) has taken to address the public health challenges posed by antibiotic use in the rearing of livestock.  I found it notable that "nine out of ten" lobbying disclosure reports - out of a total of 225 - that were filed in response to her legislative efforts from the last Congress, were from agribusiness sources opposed to the legislation.

For those interested in reading up more on this hot topic, the article referenced previous coverage in the The New York Times (16 April 2013; "Report on U.S. Meat Sounds Alarm on Resistant Bacteria") regarding a report published by the National Antimicrobial Resistance Monitoring System (joint between FDA, Dept. of Agriculture and the CDC) that found drug resistant bugs in astoundingly high percentages of supermarket meat products.  The article doesn't go into great detail about the modes of resistance, whether or not the bugs were multi-drug resistant, etc., so it may be less satisfying of a read for my microbiologically inclined readers.  For those of you who prefer a peer-reviewed look at the subject, I would recommend checking out a review article by Dr. Price and colleagues:  Curr. Op. Microbiol., 2011, 14, 244-250, "An ecological perspective on U.S. industrial poultry production..."

I have no doubt that there are many more articles and reports on this subject that have come out recently.  If you know of something that is particularly interesting, please leave a link in the comments.  

- @EJDimise

Animal-Human Transimission of Dangerous Bugs Catches the Attention of Congress

"It remains unclear whether Congress will pass any of

the current legislation related to antibiotics in farm animals

this year.  But because of the increasing awareness of the 

issue, consumer demand for antibiotic-free meat is growing."

 

- Britt E. Erickson, Chemical and Engineering News (22 July 2013)

Antibiotics have been utilized in the rearing of livestock ever since industry discovered that they helped grow bigger, healthier animals during the antibiotic heydays post WWII.  The growth enhancing affect of the bactericidal compounds yielded larger quantities of meat and healthier animals, so who could blame mid twentieth century farmers for packing their feed supplies full of the new "miracle drugs"?  But, as the history of antibiotics has proven time and again, drug resistant bugs have been showing up in livestock ever since the practice started.  Agribusiness, government regulators, Congress, and lobbying groups have, not surprisingly, been arguing about this for decades, and have been getting nowhere... for decades.  In more recent history, as the threat of antibiotic resistance in the clinical and public heath setting has become ever more acute, consumer consciousness and government attention to the problem has been increasing.  Remember going to the grocery store during the 90's and picking out steaks and chicken breasts that were guaranteed "antibiotic free"?  Yeah, I don't either.  

Now, antibiotics are no longer the sole property of the scientific journals.  One is hard pressed to avoid coverage of the subject in all the major media outlets.  With the proviso that the coverage seems to be overwhelmingly geared towards scaring the hell out of everybody, it's refreshing to see the topic of antibiotic resistance and human microbiological ecology covered so widely.  One could argue that this broad, frequent coverage has helped spur meat suppliers to offer antibiotic-free choices at the meat counter.  Of course, the growing popularity of the organic food movement, localterianism, veganism, flexitarianism, foodieism, and the extraordinary success of "food TV", and ________ (insert other -ism I may have forgotten) has played a huge role too.  Whatever the motivation, the mounting concern over antibiotic use in livestock is reaching levels in which elected officials are actively proposing legislation to curb use and abuse of the 20th century miracle cures.  

As I was perusing the 22 July 2013 edition of Chemical & Engineering News, the American Chemical Society's weekly science news magazine, I came across a nice piece of reporting by Britt E. Erickson titled "Animal Antibiotics Under Scrutiny" (linked above).  Here, two recently published journal articles were highlighted that unambiguously documented animal-to-human transmission of drug resistant bacteria.  In an article in the journal PLoS One, J. L. Rinsky et. al. published the isolation of livestock-associated drug-resistant Staph from the noses of farm workers.  In a related article in EMBO Mol. Med., E. M. Harrison et. al. used genomic techniques to pin down a separate case of animal-to-human transmission of the infamous multidrug resistant S. aureus (MRSA), a scourge in hospitals and a benchmark bug for determining if a new antibiotic is worth developing.  These finding are important because they show that filling food animals full of antibiotics can generate antibiotic resistant strains (which we knew already) and that these strains can jump from the animals to their human handlers (an area where evidence was lacking).  Have you seen a zombie movie start this way?  Some kind of exotic bug jumps from an animal into a human, and boom, apocalypse city.  Sound familiar?  Should you really be concerned about the end of times?  No.  But will this give some fodder to those scientists, activists, and elected officials who feel that we need to be preserving our precious supply of antibiotics for treating human diseases?  It most certainly ought to, at the very least.

Indeed, there currently exists four bills to address this issue directly:

1. Preservation of Antibiotics for Medical Treatment Act (H.R. 1150); Rep. Louise Slaughter (D-NY) sponsor
2. Delivering Antimicrobial Transparency in Animals Act (H.R. 820); Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA) sponsor
3. Preventing Antibiotic Resistance (PAR) Act (S. 1256); Sen. Diane Feinstein (D-CA) sponsor
4. Antimicrobial Data Collection Act (S. 895); Sen. Kirsten Gilllibrand (D-NY) sponsor

All of these bills would introduce new rules or regulations on the use of antibiotics in animal husbandry.  Some would serve to directly restrict the quantity, manner, and type of antibiotics that could be used in livestock (H.R. 1150, S. 1256).  Others would make the use of antibiotics much more transparent to the government and the public (H.R. 820, S. 895), as it is currently difficult to obtain detailed information from the FDA and livestock producers.  In all cases, the legislation would produce a stricter regulatory framework than  exists today.  Currently, the FDA works with farmers to spur the voluntary reduction of antibiotic use in feed stocks.  The thinking is not necessarily without merit, but many feel that the escalating drug resistance problem needs to be addressed quickly with regulatory measures that have "teeth".  Instead of telling livestock farmers that "we sure would like you to address this issue", it would be more, "you have to address this issue". 

It is easy to be pessimistic about anything getting done in Congress given the current political climate.  We can look to examples of legislation like the GAIN Act, which passed both houses in a bipartisan manner and was signed into law just over a year ago, as an example of both parties working together to solve an obvious problem.  But it's easy to argue that the agribusiness lobby will use its strength to bury the legislation highlighted here.  Wouldn't that feel more like "business as usual"?  Thus we come to the quote at the top of this post.  Wouldn't it be great if industry really did voluntarily reduce/eliminate the use of antibiotics because we (the consumer) would please like them to do that thank you very much?  If there's one thing that everyone in Washington loves, it's when the market solves a problem all by itself.  I'll remain hopeful, but you won't catch me holding my breath... unless I'm hanging out with MRSA infected farm animals.

- @EJDimise

Microbial Media Snippets

Hello Spent Media readers!

Wow, it's July.  My apologies, I've been away for a while.  This blogger has been busy looking for a new job, an activity that turns out to be a bit of a time suck.  I'm currently bouncing back from a very nice vacation last week, visiting family and friends on the west coast and in the south.  (Yes, the avocados and biscuits were all delicious!)

I have some interesting articles from the primary literature picked out and will prepare posts for them in the near future.  For today, I've pulled together a few quick reads from the popular press regarding some topics of interest.  Not surprisingly, mainstream media sources give a lot of attention to microbes that cause disease.  For my next post, we'll return to our focus on the gut microbiota by highlighting recent research on a bug that may help fight obesity (cool, right?), so please check back soon!  

Here are the links to the articles and a quick digest of what you can find therein:

Developing New Antibiotics

(New York Times, 6/7/2013 letter to the editor, Jeffrey Stein)

In a response to the NY Times article that I highlighted in my previous post, Jeffrey Stein, the president and chief executive of Trius Therapeutics, a San Diego based biopharmaceutical company, argues that there is a lack of market incentive for new antibiotic production.

Spurious Tuberculosis Drugs Pose a Threat

(New York Times, 7/1/2013, Donald G. McNeil Jr.)

We have focused on the challenges posed by drug resistant tuberculosis in a previous post.  In this brief highlight from the NY Times, a recent PLoS Medicine report is described.  The researchers show that in poorer nations, TB drugs are often "substandard", contributing to the rise of drug resistant tuberculosis strains.  The remedy may be simple; enforce existing World Health Organization standards.

Myths And Stigma Stoke TB Epidemic in Tajikistan

(NPR, 7/2/2013, Jason Beaubien)

Not to belabor the TB theme, but here is another interesting - and unfortunately sad - story out of Tajikistan, an example of a "poorer nation" discussed in the snippet directly above.  It turns out that in addition to having only limited access to quality drugs to treat tuberculosis, there are broad societal misconceptions about how the pathogen is spread.  To add insult to injury, contracting TB is considered shameful, causing patients to lie about or hide their illness.

Obesity, cancer and bacteria in the gut: Scientists explore link

(LA Times, 6/26/2013, Eryn Brown)

This LA Times Science Now highlight reports on a study by S. Yoshimoto et. al. in the recent issue of Nature, where it is shown that obesity triggers changes in the gut microbiota that leads to the release of deoxycholic acid, a bacterial metabolite that causes DNA damage.  The researchers believe that this points to a link between obesity and an increased risk of developing liver cancer (via a small molecule signaling mechanism).

Antibiotics in infancy linked to eczema

(Chicago Tribune, 7/3/2013 , Kathryn Doyle; Reuters)

 

A new study shows that exposure to antibiotics during the first year of life increases the risk of the allergic skin disease eczema.  The researchers suggest that this reveals a link between the resident microbes in babies, the developing immune system, and autoimmune diseases.  Alternately, there was no link found between prenatal antibiotic exposure and increased eczema risk.

Scientists Discover Thriving Colonies of Microbes in Ocean 'Plastisphere'

(ScienceDaily, 6/27/2013)

This is a fascinating one!  So, it should surprise no one that plastics, completely man-made chemicals, are pollutants in our waterways and marine ecosystems.  Tiny particles of plastic are now creating a unique environment in the Earth's oceans, referred to as the "plastisphere".  Yes, this is a bit sad and troubling, for sure.  But, this ScienceDaily post reports on a recent article in the journal Environmental Science & Toxicology by E. Zettler et. al., where the authors have found completely unique populations of microbes living in and adapting to the "plastisphere" environment.  Electron microscopy analysis of some of the plastic particles revealed pits and imperfections on the plastic surface, indicating microbial processing of the polymer.  The authors certainly did not fail to point out that it would be cool to tap the plastisphere to discover hydrocarbon and plastic degrading microbes that could be used to clean up polluted environments!  (Lemons into lemonade I suppose?)

Happy reading and Happy 4th of July!

- @EJDimise