Eating Chicken Might Make You Antibiotic-resistant

Heavy use of antibiotics in the poultry industry could be contributing to Indians developing resistance to antibiotics, finds CSE study.

A recent study conducted by the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) found antibiotics in around 40% of chicken samples tested.

Antibiotic Resistance:

Drug Resistance – Antibiotic or Antimicrobial Resistance
Drug resistance is often a problem in malaria, tuberculosis, HIV, sexually transmitted diseases and hospital acquired diseases. Judicious use of antibiotics can control the problem.

Why is this fact significant – one may ask. Antibiotics are used to fight bacterial infections. Your doctor always advises you to take antibiotics only when prescribed and to complete the full course even if you feel better after a few doses. This is because, if the bacteria are not completely killed, they have a chance of developing resistance to the antibiotic, that is, the antibiotic may not be effective against the same bacteria in the future. Given the fact that there are a limited number of antibiotics and newer antibiotics are being made available at a relatively slow rate and at a very high cost, this could lead to a dangerous situation. Imagine if you have an infection, and no available antibiotic is effective against it!

The CSE study has highlighted an important source of drug resistance – eating chicken fed with antibiotics. With the growing demands for poultry as food, poultry farms often use an easy but potentially dangerous method of fattening chickens and preventing infections in them – they give them antibiotics! Thus, bacteria are exposed to the antibiotic and could develop resistance. In addition, if the small doses of antibiotics are eaten by humans in their poultry-based foods, the bacteria in humans could also develop resistance to the antibiotic.

The proportion of chickens that tested positive for the presence of antibiotics is also alarming. In Delhi and NCR, 40% of the 70 samples tested were positive for antibiotics. In fact, some samples showed the presence of multiple antibiotics. The antibiotics included those from the tetracycline and fluoroquinolones groups, antibiotics that are commonly used for treatment of several infections like urinary tract infections, respiratory tract infections etc. in humans.

Quiz on Antibiotics
Your doctor may suggest antibiotics at the first sight of an infection, but how much do you really know about these wonder drugs? Test yourself.

Thus, besides judicious use of antibiotics to prevent drug resistance, there is yet another way to prevent drug resistance – ban the use of antibiotics in chicken and other poultry. Previous experience from Denmark shows that this may not have a detrimental effect on poultry production either.

List of Antibiotic-resistant Bacteria

Antibiotics in Chickens Make Indians Antibiotic-Resistant: Study
Indians are developing resistance to antibiotics and falling prey to a host of otherwise curable ailments due to large-scale uncontrolled use of antibiotics in the poultry industry

Staphylococcus aureus

Streptococcus pyogenes

Continuous Antibiotics Unnecessary for Children With Prenatal Abnormality
Up to 5 percent of prenatal ultrasounds are able to uncover antenatal hydronephrosis, or enlarged kidneys, the most commonly detected prenatal abnormality in the United States.

Enterococcus faecalis

Pseudomonas aeruginosa

Clostridium difficile

Escherichia coli

Salmonella

Mycobacterium tuberculosis

India has the dubious reputation of being a source of resistant bacteria due to the easy availability of antibiotics – a bacterial enzyme producing resistance is even named after the national capital. Banning use of antibiotics in poultry could be an important step in dealing with the problem, at least to some extent.

Source-Medindia