“Antibiotic resistance is a fundamental, long term threat to human health, sustainable food production and development. If we fail to address this problem quickly and comprehensively, antimicrobial resistance will make providing high quality universal health coverage more difficult, if not impossible.”
– Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon (2016) –
On September 21st, the United Nations General Assembly gathered for a special session to determine the ways in which we can curb the use of precious medicinal drugs that are quickly becoming useless in the face of bacteria’s increasing tendency towards resistance. After all 700,000 people are killed every year due to drug-resistant infections, a death toll that, if left unabated, is expected to increase dramatically to 10 million by 2050.
Antibiotic-resistant organisms continue to spread around the world with a disturbing frequency and indiscrimination, rendering formally controlled foes into new and stronger threats. Among them: a new strain of drug resistant tuberculosis and an E.coli that’s completely impervious to even the strongest medicines we have. What were once very treatable infections now vex hospitals and healthcare facilities around the world, creating life-threatening infections that are increasing hospitalization rates, healthcare costs and deaths.
As the human population increases and wealth grows, so does the demand for animal protein. The majority of antibiotic demand comes from agriculture, with 80% of the 150,000 metric tons of antibiotics made each year in the United States used exclusively for promoting growth and safeguarding health in livestock rather than human health. This practice breeds antibiotic-resistant bacteria, which can easily spread into the community via contaminated food, human-to-animal contact and airborne dust and water runoff.
Source: WHO (2014)
The situation is compounded by the fact that no new classes of antibiotics have been discovered since 1980. In a recent World Bank study, the test of 1,606 bacteria samples showed antibiotics’ reduced effectiveness: 80% of pathogens were resistant to older antibiotics such as ampicillin and tetracycline and 50% to newer antibiotics like cephalosporin and quinolone. Most were found to be immune to multiple drugs.
Governments are waking up to both the health challenge, but also the financial burden. By 2050, annual health care costs would rise 25% in low-income countries, 15% in middle-income countries and 6% in high-income countries. That could cost over $1 trillion per year and push between 8 million and 24 million people in poverty.
Most of America’s food producers have been making an active effort to reduce the use of antibiotics in recent years, due to a combination of consumer and political pressure to do so. One of them, however, has consistently led the way. Perdue Farms began phasing out antibiotics from feed in 2007, eliminating the drugs from its hatcheries in 2014. This week, Perdue announced that it has ended the routine use of all antibiotics in its entire operation. In addition to Perdue and Tyson Foods, the poultry companies Foster Farms and Pilgrim’s Pride (owned by the Brazilian company JBS) also have promised to reduce their use of antibiotics. Some restaurant chains are even following the trend – Subway, Chipotle, Panera Bread, Taco Bell, Papa John’s, Chick-fil-A, Wendy’s have pledged to stop serving meat raised with the routine use of antibiotics.
With resistance to antibiotics rising, ancient remedies are getting a second look. Can plants save us? Natural additives for livestock feed such as neem cake are gaining popularity in farms worldwide. Containing essential nutrients such as protein, calcium and carotene required for healthy growth in livestock, with the ability to eradicate microbes that cause infections and disease, neem helps to fight bacteria and alleviates the pressure of rising antibiotic resistance. As a solution, neem even offers a valuable non-toxic alternative that can be used as a substitute for chemical antibiotics to prevent the development of tuberculosis, inhibit the advancement of HIV/AIDS and deter malaria.
The pressure is on to find solutions that will effectively combat the enhanced level of danger that we are all facing. The antibiotic health benefits that neem can provide as an alternative in livestock feed will play a growing part in offering natural preventative solutions to some of the oldest and most persistent health problems we face.