The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention sounded an alarm earlier this month warning hospitals to guard against deadly new antibiotic-resistant bacteria. The bacteria have grown increasingly dangerous over the last decade. In the first half of 2012, patients treated at 200 health-care facilities were infected by the bacteria, known as carbapenem-resistant Enterobacteriaceae (CRE).
Describing CRE as “nightmare bacteria,” CDC director Dr. Tom Frieden warned that “our strongest antibiotics don’t work and patients are left with potentially untreatable infections.” The bacteria are particularly deadly, killing up to half of those infected.
Although the corporate news media covered the CDC announcement, they neglected to include background information on longstanding concerns about the massive overuse of antibiotics in animals in the agriculture industry. In September 2012, 150 scientists and 50 farmers and ranchers released statements warning of the dangers presented by overuse of antibiotics. The groups included former Food and Drug Administration commissioner Donald Kennedy, who warned that “routinely administering non-therapeutic doses of antibiotics to food animals contributes to antibiotic resistance.”
An article in The Guardian about the warnings noted that the FDA’s own statistics show 80 percent of anti-microbial drugs sold in the U.S. are used in animal agriculture. This massive use of antibiotics continues even though the agency had determined, three decades earlier, that use of penicillin and tetracycline to promote growth in animals presented a threat to human health.
The Guardian article also quoted New York Congresswoman Louise Slaughter: “Every year, more than 100,000 Americans die from bacterial infections acquired in hospitals, and seventy percent of these infections are resistant to drugs commonly used to treat them. This abuse and overuse must stop.”
The CDC website describes the growing risk that CRE presents: “One type of CRE has been detected in medical facilities in 42 states. Even more concerning, this report documents a seven-fold increase in the spread of the most common type of CRE during the past 10 years.” The CDC also cautions that one particular danger of CREs is their ability to give antibiotic resistance to other types of germs, increasing the risk to the general public.
While the CDC advises hospitals and other health-care facilities about the dangers these bacteria present, no mention is made of the widespread overuse of antibiotics to increase profits in complete disregard of public health. Corporate profits increase, and the risk, like a ticking time bomb, continues to rise.
