Antibiotic resistance has long been considered one of the greatest threats to global health. More recently, we're seeing growing public awareness around the overuse of antibiotics used in the US livestock system - a system that produces much of our meat supply. Widespread antibiotic use on US farms has evolved from something that only a small group of advocates and scientists worried about to something many more people are talking about now. The term antibiotic free is showing up on products and supermarkets and the way fast food chains are advertising their products. With drug resistant pathogens or superbugs, as some people know them, now being called the slower moving pandemic, it's time to check in on both how the science and the policy are evolving in this important part of our food system. And there's no one better than our guest to help deal with this. Dr. David Wallinga is senior health officer for the Food, Agriculture and Health, Healthy People & Thriving Communities Program at NRDC, the Natural Resources Defense Council, a leading environmental organization. David is a physician, and has led the way on connecting science with policy in the area of food and environment. He is highly regarded for his work on antibiotics and the food supply.

Interview Summary

 

So David, I recorded a podcast with you many years ago when I was at Yale University. We were discussing this important topic, and boy, a lot's been discovered since then. So it'll be nice to dig in and get updated. So again, thanks for being with us. I've really long admired your work and your passion and your ability to communicate what is pretty complex science in this area. So, David, how did the use of antibiotics in the food supply begin? What are the origins of the story?

 

Well, a book that came out in 2014 told a really compelling story that I'd never heard before (The Chain: Farm, Factory, and the Fate of our Food). And it seems to suggest that it started with the Hormel Company, the makers of SPAM, who were trying to keep up with demand for the SPAM product after world war II, and was having trouble. And one of the things they did was to reach out to researchers from the University of Minnesota to see if feeding antibiotics, these new miracle drugs, through animal feed to chickens and pigs could have an effect of them putting on weight faster, which they thought might be the case. And at least initially that did turn out to be true. So at Hormel Institute, this is what they called it, the collaboration between the researchers and the company continues today and is very involved with the University of Minnesota, as well as the Mayo clinic.

 

That's so interesting that the story began with not only using antibiotics to prevent or help cure disease, but just to make the animals grow faster and produce more meat.

 

Well, they didn't actually start off to prevent disease, that wasn't mentioned anywhere, at least in Genoway’s account. The thought was not to use them to treat disease, but rather they reasoned that if they could use the antibiotics to kill off some of the gut bacteria, then the animals would be able to divert more energy into growing. So really, it was always designed from the get go to put on weight in animals that were otherwise healthy.

 

Oh, that's so interesting. So, how widely used are antibiotics in the food supply?

 

Well, flash forward many decades, they're extremely widely used globally and in the US. Globally researchers estimated 70% of all the medically important antibiotics - and by that, I mean, ones that are used in livestock as well as in people - so about 70% or more are used on farms, especially in livestock production. In the US it's about the same amount, roughly two-thirds.

 

Oh, those are staggering numbers. So what are the up and downsides of this big use?

 

I see few upsides actually. People for time immemorial have been raising animals without antibiotics quite successfully. And there ar

Episode ID: 1000549801948

GUID: 62722a26-d77a-4c7c-818f-9527363028c4

Release Date: 02/02/2022, 22:30:00