Antibiotic-Resistant Bacteria in Roaches and Flies and Pests—Oh My!

Factory farms are crawling with bacteria — literally.

Make that antibiotic-resistant bacteria. Grist's Tom Philpott reports that a paper recently published in the journal Microbiology found that antibiotic-resistant bacteria can be spread to the masses of roaches and flies attracted to factory farms through the operations' massive amounts of manure. What's more disgusting (yes, worse than massive manure) is that it's believed that these little crawlies could pass on antibiotic-resistant bacteria to people when they move on out of their factory farmyard homes, and possibly into yours. Sounds like a bad horror flick in the making.

Scientists from North Carolina State and Kansas State tested roaches and flies from around factory hog farms. Out of the pests that they collected, more than 90 percent carried forms of Enterococci that were resistant to at least one common antibiotic. According to Philpott, it was often more than one.

We know from the Food and Drug Administration that the majority of U.S. antibiotics actually go to livestock (about 80 percent), and not to people. Antibiotics are used all over the factory farm, not just on sick animals. Livestock are given antibiotics to promote growth. Animals are also regularly given drugs to ward off illness due to the overwhelmingly filthy and stressful conditions of a factory farm. And we know that these drugs are present sometimes when animals go to slaughter. The resulting resistant bacteria is present in the meat sold at the grocery store.

So why is this concerning? There has always been food poisoning, but say you get sick from one of these resistant "superbugs" in your meat. Antibiotics won't work on drug-resistant bacteria, so these meds won't cure your illness. As you might imagine, with the growth of factory farming, these so-called superbugs are increasing.  One of the more publicized superbugs is called Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), which now kills about 19,000 people in the U.S. every year.

A big issue with antibiotics in livestock is that the drugs are frequently the same drugs that are used to treat human illness. Thus, the drugs can become less and less effective on humans as they are overused on the animals that we ultimately consume. One person who wants to fight back is Congresswoman Louise Slaughter (D-NY). She plans to reintroduce a bill that would limit the use of human antibiotics in livestock operations.

You would think that animal groups would be on her side. But, stunningly, the American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA) stands against limiting antibiotics in factory farms.  How can vets support the misuse of drugs on animals (and all of the corresponding repercussions that follow) rather than supporting reforms to the livestock production environment? The AVMA should be concerned with changing the deplorable conditions that animals live in on factory farms, not joining with the ranks of Big Pharma to pump animals full of unnecessary drugs that in turn could affect us.

Tell the  AMVA that no group connected with animal welfare should be complicit with factory farms. Sign our petition, and demand that the American Veterinary Medical Association live up to its standards and stop supporting the over-drugging of livestock.

Photo credit: christopher.vanbelle via Flickr