CONSOMMATION DE POULET ET RÉSISTANCE AUX ANTIBIOTIQUES

[Animal 0]

18 OCTOBRE 2006-
Poultry Consumption And Antibiotic Resistance In Humans

US - Antibiotic use as a livestock growth promoter increases the risk of
human antibiotic resistance, a Marshfield Clinic researcher and his
colleagues have found.

Results of the nearly $1.4 million three-year study, funded by the
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, Georgia, are in the
November 1 issue of The Journal of Infectious Diseases.

Edward Belongia, M.D., Marshfield Clinic Research Foundation,
Marshfield, Wis., and his colleagues examined poultry exposure as a risk
factor for antibiotic resistance in Enterococcus faecium, a gut
bacterium that is increasingly the cause of infections in hospitals. The
investigation team focused on use of a growth-promoting antibiotic,
called virginiamycin, in poultry.

Virginiamycin is closely related to quinupristin-dalfopristin, an
antibiotic licensed to treat patients with serious, antibiotic-resistant
infections. The drug is prescribed under the brand name Synercid.
According to Belongia, "There is a relative lack of data on the impact
of antibiotic use in livestock and its relationship to antibiotic
resistance in humans, but there is a fair amount of indirect evidence
suggesting that antibiotic use could pose a risk to human health."

"We've known for a long time that resistant bacteria can be found on
retail poultry products, but our study is one of the first to show an
association between human carriage of antibiotic resistance genes and
eating poultry or handling raw poultry.

"These results indicate that virginiamycin use in poultry leads to
transfer of antibiotic resistance genes to human gut bacteria through
the food supply and they provide additional evidence that use of growth
promoters in animals may have long-term consequences for human health.
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) can use this information to
improve its risk assessment procedures."

The importance of this issue was illustrated by a recent FDA Veterinary
Medicine Advisory Committee meeting about an application to license a
broad spectrum antibiotic, called cefquinome, for use in cattle.
Belongia spoke at the hearings, representing the Infectious Diseases
Society of America.

"There was a great deal of concern that this antibiotic could promote
resistance to cephalosporin drugs that are essential for many patients
with serious or life-threatening infections," Belongia said, "and at the
end of the day the FDA committee recommended against the drug. Our study
focused on a different drug in a different type of animal, but this is a
timely example of the controversy regarding the appropriate use of
antibiotics in food-producing animals.

"We need to have drugs to treat sick animals," he added, "but we should
not be using antibiotics to promote growth."

Working with Belongia, as principal investigator, were members of the
Marshfield Enterococcal Study Group - Amy L. Kieke, Ph.D., Mark A.
Borchardt, Ph.D., Burney A. Kieke, Susan K. Spencer and Mary F.
Vandermause; and Minnesota Department of Health, St. Paul, Minnesota -
Kirk E. Smith and Selina L. Jawahir. Amy Kieke was the first author on
the published paper. Borchardt directed laboratory activities to detect
antibiotic resistance and resistance genes. Belongia and colleagues
posed the question: Does exposing poultry to virginiamycin lead to
Synercid-resistant E. faecium in humans?

They isolated E. faecium in stool samples from 105 newly-hospitalized
patients and 65 healthy vegetarians, as well as in 77 samples of
conventional retail poultry and 23 antibiotic-free poultry meat samples.

After exposure to virginiamycin, E. faecium from conventional poultry
and from patients who consumed poultry became resistant to Synercid more
often than E. faecium from vegetarians or from antibiotic-free poultry.
Some of the resistance was attributed to a specific gene and both the
gene and resistance were associated with touching raw poultry meat and
frequent poultry consumption.

Laboratory tests showed the bacteria isolated from patients and
vegetarians had no pre-existing resistance to Synercid. Resistance was
rare among antibiotic-free poultry but a majority of bacterial isolates
from conventional poultry samples were resistant.

Source: Marshfield Clinic