Well, it IS happening.  Big pharma is agreeing to withhold antibiotics from agribusinesses.  To be honest, I am pretty surprised.  Because, as I wrote some time ago, I thought the FDA’s voluntary request would fall on deaf ears.  But, it seems that there will be fewer antibiotics fed to animals.  (Notice, I did NOT say NONE.)

But, I read another piece of data that astounded me.  Until I thought about it and realized that I was just naïve. Thomas Jukes (Lederle Laboratories) found out, in the late 40’s and 50’s, that feeding Aureomycin (an antibiotic) would boost the growth of chickens- as well as pigs, sheep, and cows.  So, it didn’t take the world’s smartest folks to discern it could do the same thing for humans.  And, since in the 50’s that was considered a good thing, that’s exactly what was considered.  (Don’t worry, it’s not just you and me who cringe- even the discoverer of penicillin, Alexander Fleming, thought that was a particularly bad idea- he said so in 1954.)

But, Dr. Charles Carter fed antibiotics to kids (mentally disabled ones, to boot) in Florida- and found they grew larger.  Others had already proven the concept using Guatemalan schoolchildren, too.  Jukes included those ‘facts’ in his treatise, where he described an “average yearly gain in weight [for those fed Aueromycin] was 6.5 pounds, while the control group averaged 1.9 pounds in yearly weight gain”.   (Navy personnel in another study the same decade were found to gain more weight over the 7 week study period in which they participated.)

Now, before you go about screaming at me, consider this.  While our animals have been fattened by the antibiotics and we are eating them….it does not explain some of our obesity epidemic.  Because the meat we eat has little, if any, antibiotics.  But, the weight gain could be related to our over-prescribing drugs, taking antibiotics for ear or chest infections, instead of just letting them run their course.

Dr. Martin Blaser (Human Microbiome program, New York University) decided to study this weight gain issue in mice.  Two groups of mice were fed high calorie food- but one group’s meals were laced with antibiotics.  And, for female mice, that meant that they were more able to convert those extra calories to fat and gain weight.  (Male mice grew more muscle and fat, not just fat.)   The postulate is that the use of antibiotics is changing the gut flora- and we know that our intestinal microflora are critical to our health.  (I’ve discussed those results here and here, among many others.)

So, think twice before you agree on that antibiotic regimen- for you and your kids.

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