A study led by Dr. Mike Apley of Kansas State University shows that opponents of antibiotics use in livestock production wildly overestimate the amount given to food animals, according to the National Pork Producers Council (NPPC).
Using data from a 2006 U.S. Department of Agriculture swine survey and a 2009 survey of swine veterinarians, Apley and his colleagues found that annually about 1.6 million lb. of antibiotics are used in pork production for growth promotion/nutritional efficiency and disease prevention. A 2001 report, "Hogging It," from the Union of Concerned Scientists claimed that 10.3 million lb. a year are used, NPPC said.
"Pork producers do not overuse antibiotics. We work with veterinarians to carefully consider if antibiotics are necessary and which ones to use," said NPPC president R.C. Hunt, a pork producer from Wilson, N.C.
The new study, which was published in the March issue of Foodborne Pathogens & Disease, found that 2.8 million lb. of antibiotics were used for growth promotion/nutritional efficiency, disease prevention and disease treatment.
The study also belies the claim made by opponents of modern livestock production and some members of Congress – and repeated by much of the media – that 80% of all antibiotics sold are used to promote growth in livestock. (That figure always has been at best a guess because there is no reliable data on human uses of antibiotics.)
Several groups and lawmakers have pushed a theory that antibiotics use in food animals is leading to treatment failures in people who develop antibiotic-resistant illnesses, NPPC said. They support legislation to ban the use in livestock of antibiotics that prevent or control diseases and of ones that improve nutritional efficiency.
The Apley study is available at www.nppc.org/wp-content/
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