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January 3, 2005
Urinary Tract Infections in Women May Be Difficult to Treat Because of Overuse of Antibiotics in Food Animals
Antibiotic-Resistant Urinary Infections a Growing Health Problem for Women
WASHINGTON—New research strengthens the possibility that antibiotic-resistant urinary tract infections (UTI), which lead to about eight million physician visits a year for women in the United States, may originate from food animals, according to experts at the School of Public Health of the University of California at Berkeley. UTIs leading to kidney infections in women cause an estimated 125,000 hospitalizations and a quarter million ambulatory cases a year.
"Women may not be getting the relief they need because of the overuse of antibiotics in food animals," said Dr. Margaret Mellon, Director the Food and Agriculture Program at the Union of Concerned Scientists. "When urinary infections do not respond to standard antibiotic treatments, the delays in finding an effective antibiotic can prolong the course of the disease and sometimes lead to trips to the emergency room."
The new research, appearing in the January 15 issue of the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases, identified E.coli bacteria from animal guts that are highly similar to the multi-drug resistant bacteria previously associated with an outbreak of urinary tract infections in women in California. The identification of the bacteria in food animals strengthens the case that antibiotic-resistant urinary tract infections have a food animal origin.
"If resistant UTI's are indeed originating in animal systems, then women's health is threatened by the overuse use of animal antibiotics," said Mellon.
Industrial animal operations routinely give the same antibiotics to animals that doctors use in human medicine-for example, sulfa drugs and penicillin. And they use these drugs in enormous quantities. Research by the Union of Concerned Scientists estimates that over 13 million pounds of such drugs are used every year in swine, poultry, and cattle-not for therapy-but for growth promotion and to compensate for the stressful crowded conditions, typical of industrial agriculture.
Formed in 1969 at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, UCS is a nonprofit partnership of scientists and citizens combining rigorous scientific analysis, innovative policy development and effective citizen advocacy to achieve practical environmental solutions. UCS helps lead Keep Antibiotics Working, a coalition of consumer, environmental and humane groups, working to safeguard public health by reducing the unnecessary use of antibiotics in animal agriculture. |
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Page Last Revised: 08/10/05 | |
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in Food and Environment