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