Antibiotics Expert

Officials worry that antibiotic-laced meats, veggies, and milk can potentially create resistant strains of bacteria in food and the environment.

Environmentalists and health-conscious consumers are always voicing their worries about antibiotics in meat and milk. But now these folks have even more reason to be concerned: A new study shows that antibiotics can also show up in crops like corn, lettuce, potatoes, and onions.

Unlike the European Union, which banned the use of antibiotics in animal feed in 2006, US farmers frequently feed their pigs, cattle, and chickens antibiotics in order to fend off infections and disease. When manure from these animals is used to fertilize plants, the crops themselves can absorb antibiotics excreted by livestock.

The MRSA superbug has put the fear of infection and death in many people, particularly in relation to getting treatments in medical facilities such as hospitals. Vancomycin has been mentioned as one of the very few drugs that might treat it, but is this a viable solution?

Antibiotic use in the first year of life is linked to a small risk for the development of asthma, and this risk increases with the number of courses of antibiotics prescribed, according to the results of a study reported in the March issue of Pediatrics.

Officials urge consumers to take antibiotics properly or risk worsening the growing problem of drug-resistant bacteria:

• Bugs become resistant through misuse or overuse of drugs, which raises the odds bacteria will mutate or learn to become resistant and survive. As the bacteria reproduce, the entire population may become resistant.

• Do not use antibiotics for illnesses caused by viruses. The drugs kill only bacteria.

• Viral or bacterial? No sure way to tell. In general, colds, sore throats, coughs and runny noses with little or no fever are caused by viruses. Ask the doctor to be sure, especially for children.

A California state legislator has introduced a bill to restrict antibiotic use in animal agriculture.

As introduced, SB 416 would:

- Prohibit, commencing Jan. 1, 2012, a school or school district from serving poultry and meat products (from which the animals have been) reated with antibiotics.
- Prohibit, commencing Jan. 1, 2015, a person from using antibiotics for non-therapeutic and prophylactic use in any animal raised for the production of any human food product.
- Require state and local governments, when purchasing meat supplies, to prefer meat supplies produced without the use of medically important antibiotics as feed additives.