These are notes on the talk that Tamar F. Barlam, M.D. of Keep Antibiotics
Working gave at the ICCI office in Des Moines today.

As we have previously learned, she confirmed that an Inter-agency
Government Task force has stated that antibiotic resistance is "a growing
menace to all people." and without action, treatments for common infections
"will become increasingly limited and expansive, and in some cases
nonexistent."

There is, however, good news.  The antibiotic resistant genes are a burden
to bacteria and will be discarded if not needed, so when antibiotic use
decreases, as it has in many European countries, antibiotic resistant
bacteria decrease as well, and the remaining strains can be controlled with
antibiotics.

Until then, however, antibiotic resistant microbes will continue to be a
growing problem.  There is documentation that microbes that have become
resistant to one antibiotic soon develop resistance to other antibiotics,
even in the absence of those other antibiotics.  They also become resistant
to heavy metals such as mercury and arsenic.

The antibiotic resistant microbes have been shown to move directly from the
animals to their handlers and on into the community at large.  The largest
concentration of microbes will be in the animals, the next largest in the
farmer and his family and less yet in the nearby urban community.  In
Nebraska a 12 year old boy had a strain that was resistant to 13 different
antibiotics.  It was traced directly to his father's animals.

The genes are found in plastids and these plastids can be transferred from
one species to another, moving, for example, from Salmonella to E. coli.
The resistant microbes have been shown to move from the building off the
farm into the water and are being transported by streams.

Antibiotic resistant microbes mean more expensive and longer treatments for
humans the annual additional medical cost runs into the billions of
dollars. Healthy animals are receiving more that eight times the amount of
antibiotics that are being used for humans.  95% of the antibiotics fed to
swine are also used for human sickness. Close confinement means that if a
few animals are sick, all of them have to be treated.

A recent study showed that one in five ground meat samples had Salmonella
and over 80% of poultry for human consumption is contaminated with
Campylobacter.

Many of you may have had the experience of talking to a CAFO owner who will
say he doesn't feed antibiotics to his animals.  One participant told us a
feed salesman told her if she raised chickens without feeding them
antibiotics they would all die. Because of the generally filthy conditions
confinement animals live in, antibiotics are probably necessary for them to
survive.

One woman related her experience of talking to a CAFO operator who told her
he didn't use antibiotics. She asked if the antibiotics were in the feed
and the farmer was thinking only of injections as antibiotic use.  Dr.
Barlam said you have to know how to ask the right questions. One is, what
percentage of your animals never need antibiotics?  We think an antibiotic
is an antibiotic is an antibiotic.  They think, I'm using it to protect my
animals, not as a growth stimulant.  As a matter of fact there has only
been a 5-6% decrease in the use of antibiotics for growth.

We are being told consumers just want cheap meat.  That is not true.  We
have also been told that eliminating non-therapeutic uses for antibiotics
would mean much more expensive meat.  A National Academy of Sciences Study
showed that phasing out antibiotics would mean only a 4%-$10 increase in
the price of meat per person per year.

The truth is that there are not enough farmers to supply the demand for
wholesome meat products.

Pass the word!

Peggy Murdock