Dung to death
Fields across Europe are contaminated with dangerous levels of the antibiotics given to farm animals. The drugs, which are in manure sprayed onto fields as fertilizers, could be getting into our food and water, helping to create a new generation of antibiotic-resistant “superbugs”.
The warning comes from a researcher in Switzerland who looked at levels of the drugs in farm slurry. ___1____.
Some 20,000 tons of antibiotics are used in the European Union and the US each year. More than half are given to farm-animals to prevent disease and promote growth. ___2___.
Most researchers assumed that humans become infected with the resistant strains by eating contaminated meat. But far more of the drugs end up in manure than in meat products, says Stephen Mueller of the Swiss Federal Institute for Environmental Science and Technology in Dubendorf.____3____
With millions of tons of animals manure spread onto fields of crops such as wheat and barley each year, this pathway seems an equally likely route for spreading resistance, he said. The drugs contaminate the crops, which are then eaten. ___4____
Mueller is particularly concerned about a group of antibiotics called sulphonamides. ____5___His analysis found that Swiss farm manure contains a high percentage of sulphonamides; each hectare of field could be contaminated with up to 1 kilogram of the drugs. This concentration is high enough to trigger the development of resistance among bacteria. But vets are not treating the issue seriously.
There is growing concern at the extent to which drugs, including antibiotics, are polluting the environment. Many drugs given to humans are also excreted unchanged and are not broken down by conventional sewage treatment.
