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What's interesting is that a big driver for this is social media. I was at a conference once & the CEO of Perdue listed this as a top driver behind this movemen
by yannibuk 12y ago
What's interesting is that a big driver for this is social media. I was at a conference once & the CEO of Perdue listed this as a top driver behind this movement. He justified it this way: imagine that it costs an extra $0.01 per pound to create chicken meat that is antibiotic free. If the profit margin was $0.05 per pound that would cut profits by 20%. Today, negative PR on Facebook or Twitter can quickly spread to erode the value of a brand far more than $0.01 per pound of cost savings. He said that the reason for the switch is driven by consumers, who are now empowered by social media.
From a nutrition tech standpoint there are a number of products including probiotics, beta glucans & others that help to protect the birds by boosting immune system activity rather than by killing bacteria. When used in combination with vaccines they can be very effective, albeit slightly more expensive. However, these ingredients add cost & come at a metabolic cost to the animal (i.e. it takes more food to produce 1 pound of meat if more of that energy is directed towards a functioning immune system & away from weight gain).
Animal nutrition science is in many ways more advanced than human nutrition due to the ability to conduct controlled studies and access to large amounts of data. However, the goals are very different.
Animals account for ~80% of antibiotic usage in the U.S. and MRSA now kills more people in the U.S. than HIV. It's an interesting topic.
- dpatrick86 12y agoGreat point. Positive changes like these resulting from social backlash are what make so-called "ag gag" laws particularly disturbing.
- micro_cam 12y agoSo antibiotics in animal feed aren't usually for protection from infection. They promote growth and bulk via mechanisms that aren't really well understood and were discovered somewhat by accident when someone started feeding waste from antibiotic production to chickens. Really: http://amrls.cvm.msu.edu/pharmacology/antimicrobial-usage-in-animals/non-therapuetic-use-of-antimicrobials-in-animals/use-of-antibiotics-in-animals-for-growth-promotion http://amrls.cvm.msu.edu/pharmacology/antimicrobial-usage-in... http://www.ncsu.edu/project/swine_extension/healthyhogs/book2004/thakur/thakur.htm http://www.ncsu.edu/project/swine_extension/healthyhogs/book...
- makmanalp 12y agoTrue! But the side effect of massive use seems to be the evolution of antibiotic-resistant bugs.
- voxic11 12y agoDo you have any evidence of that? I thought most antibiotics used on farm animals were already not commonly used on humans?
- AustinScript 12y agoI don't see a peer reviewed study but it does appear to be the FDAs position : "Bacteria evolve to survive threats to their existence. In both humans and animals, even appropriate therapeutic uses of antibiotics can promote the development of drug resistant bacteria. When such bacteria enter the food supply, they can be transferred to the people who eat food from the treated animal." I suggest reading the article to really understand what they are saying rather than dissecting the little tidbit I picked out but it sounds as if it doesn't matter if the exact same drug is used to treat both humans and animals, there is still a threat.
- ceejayoz 12y agoNPR's story yesterday indicated that Perdue had previously been including gentamycin along with vaccinations of chicken eggs, which appears to be used in humans. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gentamicin#Medical_uses http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gentamicin#Medical_uses
- micro_cam 12y agoAbsolutely, using them on a massive scale in sub therapeutic doses is what you would do if you wanted to create an evolutionary pressure towards antibiotic resistant bacteria. I thought that would be clear to anyone who read my comment. Obviously more study on exactly what creates the medically relevant resistant bacteria is needed but based on the trend so far I don't think the prudent thing to do is start curtailing non essential anti-biotic use.
- ptrklly 12y agoInteresting! Do you know how they value the negative PR cost? My understanding is that "brand value" is notoriously hard to measure, which made me think it would be difficult to include in the type of cost/benefit comparison you refer to (the $.05 vs $.01 per pound cost).
- reitanqild 12y agoThere are some interesting techniques. Off the top of my head there is the shopping basket experiement: Show shopping lists to the participants. Both lists are equal except one product, the one you want to measure. Ask participant what they can tell you about whoever created the list. Example: two similar lists, one with standard coffee and one with instant coffee. Result: They found that instant coffee was associated with "lazy" etc (they hoped for "smart" and subsequently adjusted their branding to achieve this.) (I guess it's just a special case of A/B test) Edit: I read about this in school many years ago but at least here's one source: http://web.utk.edu/~rhovland/PTsandCR.html http://web.utk.edu/~rhovland/PTsandCR.html : Projective Techniques in Consumer Research (My google query was: instant coffee grocery list experiment)
- tootie 12y agoRegarding the social media outrage, it sounds like a mized blessing. They might convince the megafarms to stop using dihydrogen monoxide on their crops after they hear that it causes tsunamis.
- Istof 12y agoDo you know the real dollar amounts?