07/03/2018: Antibiotics in chicken feed spark food safety concerns

by Charles Poladian, Content Manager, Gro Intelligence

For decades, chicken farmers added antibiotics to their flocks’ feed to treat infections, promote growth, and/or improve feed use efficiency

But the industry increasingly discovered that the indiscriminate application of antibiotics in poultry can have life-threatening human consequences. Since 2010, fears of bacteria with antibiotic resistance have elicited a wave of regulation and industry changes.
 

The 1940 discovery that small doses of antibiotics mixed into poultry feed could promote growth in the absence of an infection greatly accelerated the growth of antibiotic usage. It’s not entirely known why this occurs, but scientists believe that gut microorganisms may be siphoning nutrients away from birds during key developmental periods. Antibiotics may also treat latent infections acquired through close proximity and unhygienic living conditions common in industrial poultry production. Because of these benefits, the majority of antibiotic use in livestock feed is administered for growth promotion.

Antibiotic supplementation can reduce feed costs for chicken farmers by up to 10 percent. Meat harvested from birds supplemented with antibiotics also contains more protein and less fat. Furthermore, adding both tetracycline and penicillin—two commonly used classes of antibiotics—to feed was shown to improve egg production and hatchability of chicks. While antibiotics have benefited farmers, consumer concern over antibiotic use in their food mounts.

Debate continues over how antibiotic resistant bacterial strains in poultry can impact humans. Consider avoparcin, an antibiotic used in poultry feed but not in the treatment of humans. Avoparcin belongs to the glycopeptide class of drugs used in both animals and humans. If bacteria develop resistant strains to avoparcin, opponents suggest that they might also become resistant to another glycopeptide antibiotic used in humans; vancomycin.

The likelihood of cross-resistant bacterial development increases with more frequent antibiotic use. Sepiolite, a common non-antibiotic feed additive used to reduce abdominal fat percentage in broilers, can even promote this cross-resistance in the digestive tract of birds. A direct link between antibiotic use in animals and human health remains hard to assess as there are many factors that influence the risk.

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) asks drug developers to complete a risk assessment before new antibiotics can be used in animal production and in humans. The FDA’s measure does not go far enough for those concerned that antibiotics used in feed will negatively affect humans if not heavily regulated.

Read the full article with diagrams, HERE.

 

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