“Imagine a situation where all the antibiotics of last resort — which are propping up public health everywhere in the world — become useless.” This is a statement made by Patrick Holden, farmer and director of Sustainable Food Trust in an interview with Civil Eats.¹

It sums up one of the most pressing issues facing industrial meat production and, consequently, the larger public.

Eighty percent of the antibiotics used in the U.S. are used by industrial agriculture for purposes of growth promotion and preventing diseases that would otherwise make their concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) unviable.

The cost of the loss of life that could result if antibiotics become ineffective is immeasurable, but this is just one cost of industrial agriculture. As Holden explained:²

“We’d also need to look at the cost of infectious diseases linked to industrial livestock production, the quality of the meats not being as health-promoting as grass-fed meat, residues of various kinds finding their way into the meat, and the cost to the environment …

… [B]oth of the production itself (particularly water pollution resulting from nitrate pollution) and of the cropping systems that feed the livestock (more nitrate pollution from the synthetic nitrogen fertilizers used to grow acres and acres of corn and soybeans).”

At Least 2 Million Americans Acquire Drug-Resistant Infections Every Year

According to U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) data, every year at least 2 million Americans acquire drug-resistant infections and 23,000 die as a result. Many others die from conditions that were complicated by antibiotic-resistant infections.³

Bacteria are, in essence, hard-wired to adapt to threats such as antibiotics and, at such point in time when they adapt to resist all of them, infections that were once easily treated will undoubtedly return with renewed force.

CAFOs, in particular, are hotbeds for breeding antibiotic-resistant bacteria because of the continuous feeding of low doses of antibiotics to the animals, which allows pathogens to survive, adapt, and eventually, thrive.

One of the worst examples is carbapenem-resistant Enterobacteriaceae (CRE), which are resistant to the class of antibiotics called carbapenems.⁴ CRE has been dubbed a “nightmare bacteria” by the CDC’s Director Dr. Tom Frieden because of their extreme resilience — it’s nearly impossible to kill them.

And it’s far from the only “nightmare.” According to the CDC, 22 percent of antibiotic-resistant illness in humans is linked to food,⁵ but a more accurate statement might be linked to food from CAFOs.

For instance, Klebsiella pneumonia are bacteria that can lead to pneumonia, bloodstream infections, wound and surgical site infections and meningitis. Klebsiella are often found in the human intestinal tract, where they are normally harmless.

But if your immune system is compromised and you get exposed to an especially virulent drug-resistant form, the consequences to you can be deadly. Further, research published in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases showed that turkey, chicken and pork sold in U.S. grocery stores may contain klebsiella pneumonia.⁶