The Food and Drug Administration found recently that samples of a feed by-product from dozens of corn-ethanol plants were contaminated with antibiotics. With that news, producing vehicle fuel from grain is looking not only like a wasteful and inefficient process, but also like a danger to human health.

Growing corn is a leading cause of soil erosion as well as water depletion and pollution. Corn ethanol plants further stress our water supplies by consuming four gallons of water for every gallon of fuel produced.

Now to the list of ethanol's environmental insults we can add pharmaceutical pollution.

There's nothing inherently wrong with getting help from biological processes to meet industrial needs. But when colossal volumes of product and enormous profits are at stake, as they are in the alternative-fuel industry, biological methods can backfire disastrously.

To survive economically, ethanol plants depend on sales of distillers grains, solid material left over from corn fermentation. Distillers grains are a nutritious, high-protein livestock feed. But they can be laced with multiple antibiotics, the FDA and University of Minnesota scientists have found.

Addition of antibiotics is one of several methods ethanol manufacturers use to control bacterial contamination. Bacteria interfere with the work of yeast cultures that convert sugars to ethanol. Antibiotics can increase ethanol output by 1 to 5 percent, according to Ethanol Producer magazine.

That sounds small, but that extra efficiency could boost profits by many millions of dollars as national production is scaled up from its current 9 billion gallons per year.

The discovery of antibiotics in distillers grains has raised concern that ethanol plants could breed and disperse drug-resistant bacteria, and that those bugs could share their genes with bacterial species that cause human diseases. Sampling by university and industry researchers has turned up antibiotic-resistant bacteria in the processing streams of ethanol plants.

This case of pharmaceutical contamination comes on top of a half-century of over-prescribing antibiotics for medical and veterinary use, along with routine feeding of the drugs to healthy livestock to promote growth. Nature's predictable response: bacterial populations that can no longer be killed by drugs that were once used to treat them. Now, of 90,000 Americans who die of bacterial infections each year, more than 60,000 are killed by such drug-resistant types, according to the Centers for Disease Control.

The ethanol industry says that one widely used drug, virginiamycin, doesn't show up in meat produced with distillers grains, so we need not worry about the food supply. But such assurances take the narrowest possible view of the threat.

Johns Hopkins University researchers argued in 2008 that public health officials have also taken a narrow approach to antibiotic resistance, thinking clinically "rather than ecologically in terms of reservoirs of resistance genes that may flow across the microbial ecosystem." Use of the drugs in agriculture is more widespread than in medicine, and, they contend, creates excellent conditions for the spread of resistant organisms.

In fact, it's already happening, with germs borne via manure, air, groundwater, soil, flies and irrigation water.

The Johns Hopkins review concluded that overuse of antibiotics in agriculture "has compromised the efficacy of most antimicrobials used in the United States and throughout the world."   

READ THE REST OF THE ARTICLE HERE

For more information on this topic or related issues you can search the thousands of archived articles on the OCA website using keywords:

Become an OCA Member! Sign up below:

First Name
Last Name
Email
Email Preference	HTML EmailText Email
Phone
Street
Street 2
City
State	Select One... Alabama Alaska Arizona Arkansas California Colorado Connecticut Delaware D.C. Florida Georgia Hawaii Idaho Illinois Indiana Iowa Kansas Kentucky Louisiana Maine Maryland Massachusetts Michigan Minnesota Mississippi Missouri Montana Nebraska Nevada New Hampshire New Jersey New Mexico New York North Carolina North Dakota Ohio Oklahoma Oregon Pennsylvania Rhode Island South Carolina South Dakota Tennessee Texas Utah Vermont Virginia Washington West Virginia Wisconsin Wyoming Other
Zip
Country	United StatesAfghanistanAlbaniaAlgeriaAndorraAngolaAntigua and BarbudaArgentinaArmeniaAustraliaAustriaAzerbaijanBahamasBahrainBangladeshBarbadosBelarusBelgiumBelizeBeninBhutanBoliviaBosnia and HerzegovinaBotswanaBrazilBruneiBulgariaBurkina FasoBurundiCambodiaCameroonCanadaCape VerdeCentral African RepublicChadChileChinaColombiaComorosCongoCongDemocratic Republic of theCosta RicaCroatiaCubaCyprusCzech RepublicIvory CoastDenmarkDjiboutiDominicaDominican RepublicEast TimorEcuadorEgyptEl SalvadorEquatorial GuineaEritreaEstoniaEthiopiaFijiFinlandFranceGabonGambiTheGeorgiaGermanyGhanaGreeceGrenadaGuatemalaGuineaGuinea-BissauGuyanaHaitiHondurasHungaryIcelandIndiaIndonesiaIranIraqIrelandIsraelItalyJamaicaJapanJordanKazakhstanKenyaKiribatiKoreNorthKoreSouthKuwaitKyrgyzstanLaosLatviaLebanonLesothoLiberiaLibyaLiechtensteinLithuaniaLuxembourgMacedoniFormer Yugoslav Republic ofMadagascarMalawiMalaysiaMaldivesMaliMaltaMarshall IslandsMauritaniaMauritiusMexicoMicronesiFederated States ofMoldovaMonacoMongoliaMoroccoMozambiqueMyanmarNamibiaNauruNepalNetherlandsNew ZealandNicaraguaNigerNigeriaNorwayOmanPakistanPalauPanamaPapua New GuineaParaguayPeruPhilippinesPolandPortugalQatarRomaniaRussiaRwandaSaint Kitts and NevisSaint LuciaSaint Vincent and The GrenadinesSamoaSan MarinoSao Tome and PrincipeSaudi ArabiaSenegalSerbia and MontenegroSeychellesSierra LeoneSingaporeSlovakiaSloveniaSolomon IslandsSomaliaSouth AfricaSpainSri LankaSudanSurinameSwazilandSwedenSwitzerlandSyriaTaiwanTajikistanTanzaniaThailandTogoTongaTrinidad and TobagoTunisiaTurkeyTurkmenistanTuvaluUgandaUkraineUnited Arab EmiratesUnited KingdomUruguayUzbekistanVanuatuVatican CityVenezuelaVietnamWestern SaharaYemenZambiaZimbabwe