There is a growing concern over the use of antibiotics in animals and how excessive use (or misuse) of antibiotics in animals can lead to reduced antibiotic effectiveness in humans.

Antibiotics on the farm lead to human resistance

Numerous studies and evidence indicate (although not conclusively) that there is a direct link between the use of an antibiotics in raising poultry and human resistance to them. In Canada, a study concerning the use of a third generation cephalosporin antibiotic called ceftiofur in hatcheries matched a rapid increase in human resistance to the drug. Likewise when the drug use was voluntarily withdrawn from chicken hatcheries, the incidences of human resistance to cefiofur.

The antibiotic is injected into the egg prior to a chick hatching as a preventative measure against disease and illness. This allows more chickens to be raised in

The large amount of evidence has led an antibiotic resistance expert Frank Aares to say:

“Taken in context with all the other knowledge we have, anyone still opposing a link between antibiotic use in food animal production and direct human health impact does so for other reasons than science.”

Despite the evidence and the removal of the drug for “off-label use” in Canada and in other countries, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in the United States has withdrawn a proposed law which prohibits the extra-label use of cephalosporins. Extra-label use (sometimes referred to as off-label use) is the use of drug for a purpose for which it has not been explicitly approved. In this case, cephalosporin antibiotics have not been approved by the FDA as a preventative antibiotic, it appears to only have been approved for treatment of illnesses in swine and cattle.

FDA and ‘Big Chicken’ duke it out

It appears that there is a battle being waged between the FDA and “Big Chicken” over Antibiotics. It will be interesting if the FDA reintroduces a ban in the future or if the big agri-business (and drug makers) have won another round. Large industrial chicken farmers want to be able to use the antibiotic to increase the amount of chickens that they can raise in a given space and reduce the chance of disease spreading through their flocks. Understandable as those goals are, if it puts humans as risk of not having antibiotics be effective when required, I’ll have my chicken sans antibiotics.

In April, the Hawaii Department of Agriculture started a three year pilot program which is attempting to trace and track produce (tomatoes in the pilot) using RFID tags. The tags are not attached directly to the tomatoes but to the boxes in which the tomatoes are shipped from the farm.

The intent is to have a record of the produce’s location and therefore be able to trace produce through the food distribution chain. By having such traceability, it would be easy to quickly isolate and contain food contamination such as the recent salmonella outbreaks in the United States.

If successful, this technology could help reliably track shipments of produce, meat and other goods through our food system. Despite probable objections to opening up this kind of data, if it was made available to consumers, it would give us the ability to see where our food really comes from.

The tomato industry appears to be headed for some tough times after the recent rash of salmonella poisoning cases in the United States. The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has linked the salmonella cases to certain raw tomatoes. Tomato varieties which appear to be of concern are raw red plum tomatoes, raw red Roma tomatoes and raw red round tomatoes. The FDA has also listed certain jurisdictions which are not associated with the contaminated tomatoes. Luckily this list includes the whole country of Canada.

The Impact to Farmers

Tomato growers are understandably quite concerned about this outbreak and what the impact will be on their business. Farmers in the affected areas will be greatly impacted as purchases from their states or areas will be effectively banned until the precise point of contamination can be identified. Farmers in certain areas are likely to have to let tomatoes rot on the vine as they cannot sell any produce they were to pick and package.

Short term, there is a large hit as a majority of restaurants have pulled tomatoes from their offerings and many grocery stores have also stopped selling certain types of tomatoes. The industry as a whole will definitely feel a longer term impact however as the leery consumer is likely to veer away from tomatoes until confidence in its safety can be restored. The spinach industry is still trying to recover from a decrease in consumption after an e.coli outbreak occurred in 2006.

Preventing future outbreaks

Traceability

One of the frustrating issues with a food safety issue such as this salmonella poisoning case is the amount of time which it takes to isolate the source of the contamination. By necessitating traceability, food safety agencies and consumers themselves, could more easily trace contaminated to food back to its origin. The quicker the source of the outbreak can be identified and isolated, the easier it is to prevent or stop the spread of the outbreak.

In my opinion it should be possible to trace back produce to the farm on which it was grown. Currently that is nearly impossible as large packaging companies and marketing companies combine produce from many different sources and distribute it to a multitude of locations so there is no telling where the tomato you buy in the store was grown. There are typically country of origin but there are quite a few farms spread out across the country.

Buying local

The other approach is to limit large scale distribution of food by encouraging consumers to buy local produce. In this fashion, any outbreak would be restricted to a local population which would simplify the identification and isolation of the contamination source.

Hopefully the salmonella source will be quickly isolated and the impact on the industry will be short lived. Perhaps some people will start to critically examine their food and the entire agricultural industry instead of taking food for granted.