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Antimicrobial Use in Animal Feed: an Ecological and Public Health Problem
The full text is available at: www.mmaonline.net/publications/MNMed2002/October/Wallinga.html Introduction Antibiotics arguably constitute one of the most important medical discoveries of the last century. Unfortunately, many antibiotics now are rapidly losing effectiveness as bacteria increasingly acquire resistance to multiple medicines. Antibiotic use is the key driver of resistance. Even with appropriate antibiotic use, some resistance will inevitably develop. Misuse and overuse of antibiotics, however, hasten and spread resistance. Concerns about antibiotic overuse in human medicine are widespread and well founded. In 1998, an Institute of Medicine report determined that between 25 percent and 40 percent of antibiotic use in U.S. hospitals is unnecessary, as is 20 percent to 50 percent of physician use in community settings. Increasing resources have been devoted to changing prescribing practices as well as patient expectations. In contrast, routine feeding of antibiotics to animals raised for food has only belatedly attracted the medical community’s attention—despite last year’s editorial in Science stating the “strong scientific consensus” that routine administration of antibiotics to food animals is “a bad idea.” |