One of the world's most potent and widely used antibiotics poses a more significant threat to human health than previously known and could outweigh the drug's effectiveness, a new Reuters report claims.
The antibiotic is called ceftiofur, and it's one of the most potent antibiotics used by U.S. cattle farmers. Reuters analyzed government data and discovered that traces of the antibiotic were found at illegal levels in slaughtered animals more frequently than any other drug, accounting for one-fourth of all residue violations recorded in 2013 by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
The main concern is that antibiotic-resistant bacteria found in the animals could be transferred to humans, leaving common antibiotics used to treat bacterial infections ineffective.
While the antibiotic residue itself is not dangerous to humans due to it being regulated well below hazardous levels, studies have shown that ceftiofur can increase the amount of antibiotic-resistant bacteria more than most other drugs.
"The U.S. Food and Drug Administration cautioned in 2012 that ceftiofur could pose a 'high public health risk,' in part because the drug belongs to a class of antibiotics considered critically important in human medicine," Retuers said. "The warning is the FDA's strongest kind. The concern is that ceftiofur in animals could spawn antibiotic-resistant bacteria, superbugs that can infect people and defeat conventional medical treatment, even when the drug is used as directed."
The drug belongs to a class of antibiotics that are essential to successfully treating pneumonia, meningitis and salmonella infections in children, according to the Food and Drug Administration.
Zoetis, the company that produces the drug, says ceftiofur is safe to use when done so according to the label directions.
But, Reuters noted that farmers have an economic incentive to misuse use the antibiotic immediately before preparing to sell the cow to a slaughterhouse. Slaughterhouses need to buy healthy cows, so a farmer will often administer ceftiofur "at the end of the animals' lives hoping they'd hang on, so that a slaughterhouse would accept the cows and pay [the farmer]," Reuters found.
FDA spokeswoman Jul Putnam told Reuters that the agency is "aware of the increase in ceftiofur residue violations" and is attempting to better understand the matter.
"The widespread application of antibiotics in veterinary medicine poses enormous challenges for health authorities," said Retuers. "Today, 80 percent of all antibiotics used in the United States are given to livestock, not to people. In September, Reuters documented how some of America's largest poultry companies routinely mix low levels of antibiotics into the feed given to chickens, a practice that scientists believe is especially conducive to the growth of superbugs."
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, about 2 million people in the United States are sickened each year by bacterial infections that resist conventional antibiotics, and at least 23,000 people die.
The World Health Organization called antibiotic resistance "a problem so serious it threatens the achievements of modern medicine," and said "if we don't act now, we will find ourselves in a pre-antibiotic era."
In September, President Barack Obama proposed a series of new executive actions to combat the growing threat of antibiotic-resistant bacteria.
India is currently experiencing a deadly antibiotic-resistant bacteria epidemic, where tens of thousands of newborns are dying because medicine can no longer effectively treat bacterial infections. Just five years ago, India "almost never saw these kinds of infections," one Indian doctor told The New York Times.
Last year alone, more than 58,000 newborns died as a result. Experts say that if the problem is not adequately addressed, it could become a disaster for the entire world. Researchers have already found "superbugs" carrying a genetic code first identified in India in countries including France, Japan and the United States, reported The Times.
