A new report from the Food and Drug Administration shows that the amount of antibiotics administered to farm animals in the United States increased by 16 percent between 2009 and 2012, and almost 70 percent of those used are considered "medically important" for humans, reported The Atlantic.
Farm animals consume the majority of all antibiotics in the U.S. - up to 80 percent for chickens, pigs and cows alone. But such widespread and heavy use of these drugs that are designed to generate quicker growth and better protect animals from disease is negatively affecting humans.
Bugs are growing more resistant and becoming tougher to treat, and strains of drug-resistant tuberculosis and gonorrhea are on the rise, according to the Atlantic.
President Obama signed an executive order last month designed to create a new task force to tackle the growing problem of antibiotic resistance, and the FDA announced plans last year to cut down on animal antibiotic use as well, but critics say such plans do little to close loopholes.
Obama's antibiotic plan set aside $800 million for companies to develop new drugs, and an additional $900 million for research. Although the plan prohibits the use of antibiotics for growth purposes, experts say one could still use antibiotics for the same purpose and call it a preventative measure, reported the Verge.
"It reads as if it had been written by someone either from the meat industry, or the vet drug industry," James Johnson, an infectious disease researcher at the University of Minnesota, told the Verge. "The language is the standard party line about how antibiotic use in animals makes stronger animals - that it's all wonderful. But that's just one perspective, and I don't think it's a science-based perspective."
Treating antibiotic resistance is estimated to cost the American healthcare system around $21 billion each year and takes the lives of 23,000 in the U.S. alone.
