— OPINION —
By Allie Molinaro
If you aren’t already concerned about antibiotic resistance, it’s time to take notice. The UN recently issued a grave warning, declaring antimicrobial resistance (AMR) one of the most urgent global health threats. Known as the “silent pandemic,” antibiotic resistance claimed 4.7 million lives in 2021 alone. If left unchecked, that number could soar to 10 million per year by 2050—more than twice the global COVID-19 deaths in 2020. The projected AMR healthcare costs could surpass $1 trillion annually and up to $3.4 trillion in GDP losses.
Many people assume that the primary cause of antibiotic resistance is human misuse. The quickest way to make a doctor or nurse’s blood pressure skyrocket is by telling them you didn’t finish your round of antibiotics. “You can’t do that!” they’ll exclaim, “That’s how you create SUPERBUGS!” They are right, of course, as exposing bacteria to antibiotics without killing all of them can cause the survivors to become resistant to the drugs.
But your decision to stop your 14-day prescription after 11 days is probably less apocalyptic than your doctor makes it out to be. While I don’t condone stopping antibiotics prematurely, that is not the main driver of antibiotic resistance. In fact, most antibiotics aren’t even used on humans. About two-thirds of all U.S. antibiotics are used in the meat and poultry industry. And what would make any health professional scream even more is that most of these antibiotics are used on animals who aren’t sick.
In the U.S., 98 percent of animals raised for meat are confined in industrialized systems that prioritize maximum output at the expense of animal health. Thousands (and often hundreds of thousands) of stressed and frustrated animals are crammed into poorly ventilated barns, standing in their own waste. Many often have lesions and open wounds, and standard practices often include cutting off the animals’ tails or castrating them without proper treatment. Bodily fluids including urine, blood, and mucus mix among the crowded, immunosuppressed animals, creating a toxic soup of bacteria, parasites, fungi, and viruses. Manure is kept in lagoons the size of football fields, creating more breeding grounds for disease. With animal health and welfare often ignored, routine antibiotics are used as a crutch to keep animals alive just long enough to reach slaughter.
According to the FDA, the U.S. livestock industry purchased over 24 million pounds of antimicrobial drugs last year, over half of which are considered medically important. Despite public pressure campaigns to wean the livestock industry from its antibiotic addiction, the beef, turkey, and pork sectors have made little progress — even increasing their use in the last few years.
Consumers have tried to take matters into their own hands by opting for products with antibiotic-free labels. But, a recent USDA study sampling nearly 200 cattle carcasses across 34 states found that 20 percent of the samples in the “Raised Without Antibiotics” market contained antibiotic residues. In other words, one-fifth of beef products with antibiotic-free labels may not be antibiotic-free at all.
Surely the USDA will require testing after these findings, right? Wrong. Despite their own findings, the USDA’s recently updated labeling guidelines merely “recommend” that companies verify their antibiotic-free claims via testing. This level of oversight is about as reassuring as “recommending” toddlers to confess to stealing cookies from the cookie jar.
The USDA oversees approval of value-added claims on animal products, including “Raised Without Antibiotics” and “No Antibiotics Ever.” The agency undertook a multi-year effort to update its approval process, which prompted the study. But the new regulations are in many ways identical to the old ones, simply requiring companies who want to put such claims on their packaging to submit written descriptions of their operating procedures and only adding the recommendation to implement testing programs. The agency spent significant time and resources on the study and found deep flaws in their verification system, but their resulting regulation update is more of a pardon than a fix.
Meanwhile, other regions have been more successful at ousting antibiotics from agriculture. In 2022, the European Union banned the routine use of antibiotics in farmed animals, cutting their use per animal in half compared to the U.S. Earlier this year, the United Kingdom also enacted a law banning the routine use of antibiotics in farmed animals and prohibiting farmers from using antibiotics “to compensate for poor hygiene, inadequate animal husbandry, or poor farm management practices.”
The USDA’s toothless and apathetic response to antibiotic misuse and mislabeling is a slap in the face to our health professionals, UN leaders, and citizens. The USDA should be doing all it can to prevent a post-antibiotic era, and yet it will not even require testing measures in voluntary antibiotic claims. The agency’s inaction is also unfair to the farmers who genuinely adhere to antibiotic-free practices and rely on those claims to differentiate their products in the marketplace. With the USDA refusing to enforce rigorous testing standards in any capacity, the integrity of these labels and the public’s trust will crumble—and so will our health.
So, what can we, as consumers, do to address this growing crisis?
1. Know your farmer. As the USDA’s study proved, when it comes to antibiotic-free products, you don’t truly know what you are getting unless you get it from the source. Try to buy from local producers who you can ask directly about their practices. Cattle who are grazed 100 percent on pasture are also less likely to be given antibiotics for liver abscess prevention, a symptom of unnatural grain diets.
2. Eat less meat. The only surefire way to reduce antibiotics from farmed animals is to reduce consumption of animal products. The U.S. eats more meat and poultry per capita than any other country in the world. To support healthier farming practices, we need to both lower our meat intake and transition to pasture-based systems.
3. Advocate for change. Ask your representatives to support federal bills such as the Farm System Reform Act and the Industrial Agriculture Conversion Act, which would provide farmers entrenched in industrialized methods with resources to transition to more sustainable farming operations that lessen the need for antibiotics.
The era of unchecked antibiotic use in animal agriculture must come to an end. Without urgent reform, the future looks grim—a world where common infections become deadly again and cornerstones of modern medicine are erased by the rise of antibiotic-resistant superbugs. But by making informed food choices and supporting systemic change, we can help steer the world toward a healthier, more sustainable future.
About the author: Allie Molinaro is the U.S. Campaigns Manager at Compassion in World Farming (CIWF) and a Multi-Sector Coalition member for the Antibiotic Resistance Action Center. CIWF is a science-led global organization dedicated to improving farmed animal welfare. We work with policy makers and food businesses, offering technical expertise to peacefully campaign for an end to factory farming and support the transition to a compassionate, fair, and sustainable food system. CIWF is also a founding member of the Alliance to Save Our Antibiotics.
(To sign up for a free subscription to Food Safety News,click here)
