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April 5, 2012
Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health
Researchers have found evidence suggesting that a class of antibiotics
previously banned by the US government for poultry production is still
in use.
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n a joint study, researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of
Public Health and Arizona State University found evidence suggesting
that a class of antibiotics previously banned by the U.S. government for
poultry production is still in use. Results of the study were published March
21 in Environmental Science & Technology.
The study, conducted by the Bloomberg School's
Center for a Livable Future and Arizona State's
Biodesign Institute, looked for drugs and other
residues in feather meal, a common additive to
chicken, swine, cattle and fish feed. The most
important drugs found in the study were
fluoroquinolones -- broad spectrum antibiotics used to
treat serious bacterial infections in people,
particularly those infections that have become
resistant to old-er antibiotic classes. The banned
drugs were found in 8 of 12 samples of feather meal
in a multi-state study. The findings were a surprise to
scientists because fluoroquinolone use in U.S.
poultry production was banned by the U.S. Food and
Drug Administration in 2005.
This is the first time investigators have examined
feather meal, a byproduct of poultry production made
from poultry feathers, to determine what drugs poultry may have received prior to their
slaughter and sale.
The annual per capita human consumption of poultry products is approximately 100
lbs, greater than that of any other animal- or vegetable-derived protein source in the
U.S. To satisfy this demand, each year, the U.S. poultry industry raises nearly 9
billion broiler chickens and 80 million turkeys, according to the U.S. Department of
Agriculture. A large percentage of the fresh weight of these animals is inedible -- an
estimated 33 percent for chickens, for example -- and is recycled for other uses,
including feather meal.
The rendering industry, which converts animal byproducts into a wide range of
materials, processes poultry feathers into feather meal, which is often added as a
supplement to poultry, pig, ruminant, and fish feeds or sold as an "organic" fertilizer.
In a companion study, researchers found inorganic arsenic in feather meal used in
retail fertilizers.
"The discovery of certain antibiotics in feather meal strongly suggests the continued
use of these drugs, despite the ban put in place in 2005 by the FDA," said David
Love, PhD, lead author of the report. "The public health community has long been
frustrated with the unwillingness of FDA to effectively address what antibiotics are fed
to food animals."
A primary reason for the 2005 FDA ban on the use of fluoroquinolones in poultry
production was an alarming increase in the rate of the fluoroquinolone resistance
among Campylobacter bacteria. "In recent years, we've seen the rate of
fluoroquinolone resistance slow, but not drop," noted study co-author Keeve
Nachman, PhD, Farming for the Future Program Director at the Johns Hopkins Center
for a Livable Future. "With such a ban, you would expect a decline in resistance to
these drugs. The continued use of fluoroquinolones and unintended antibiotic
contamination of poultry feed may help ex-plain why high rates of fluoroquinolone-
resistant Campylobacter continue to be found on commercial poultry meat products
over half a decade after the ban."
In the U.S., antibiotics are introduced into the feed and water of industrially raised
poultry, primarily to make them grow faster, rather than to treat disease. An estimated
13.2 million kg of antibiotics were sold in 2009 to the U.S. poultry and livestock
industries, which represented nearly 80 percent of all antibiotic sales for use in
humans and animals in the U.S. that year.
In conducting the study, researchers from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of
Public Health and Arizona State University analyzed commercially available feather
meal samples, acquired from six U.S. states and China, for a suite of 59
pharmaceuticals and personal care products. All 12 samples tested had between 2
and 10 antibiotic residues. In addition to antimicrobials, 7 other personal care
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Featured Research
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MLA APA Chicago
Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health. "Banned antibiotics
found in poultry products." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 5 April 2012.
<www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/04/120405131431.htm>.
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products, including the pain reliever acetaminophen (the active ingredient in Tylenol),
the antihistamine diphenhydramine (the active ingredient in Benadryl) and the
antidepressant fluoxetine (the active ingredient in Prozac), were detected.
Researchers also found caffeine in 10 of 12 feather meal samples. "This study
reveals yet another pathway of unwanted human exposure to a surprisingly broad
spectrum of prescription and over the-counter drugs," noted study co-author Rolf
Halden, PhD, PE, Co-Director of the Center for Health Information & Research, and
Associate Director of the Swette Center for Environmental Biotechnology at Arizona
State University.
When researchers exposed several strains of E. coli bacteria to the concentrations of
antibiotics found in the feather meal samples, they also discovered the drug residues
could select for resistant bacteria. "A high enough concentration was found in one of
the samples to select for bacteria that are resistant to drugs important to treat
infections in humans," noted Nachman.
"We strongly believe that the FDA should monitor what drugs are going into animal
feed," urged Nachman. "Based on what we've learned, I'm concerned that the new
FDA guidance documents, which call for voluntary action from industry, will be
ineffectual. By looking into feather meal, and uncovering a drug banned nearly 6 years
ago, we have very little confidence that the food animal production industry can be left
to regulate it-self."
Story Source:
The above story is based on materials provided by Johns Hopkins University
Bloomberg School of Public Health. Note: Materials may be edited for content and
length.
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