Or, Qualify All the Things!
In this penultimate installment of my skeptical look at food, we’re going to examine a few very different angles regarding the food we eat. These include the debate over GMO crops, and organic livestock.
The Terror of Genetically-Modified Organisms
Food Fight doesn’t address this issue directly, to their credit, but no discussion of food technology is complete without a discussion of genetically-modified organisms. This is, without a doubt, one of the most divisive issues in global food production today. These tend to get demonized among the organic-food crowd and a lot of people with a general distrust of large corporations playing around with our food supplies. But is their scary status truly deserved? Some people point to vastly increased crop yields and reduced need for pesticides and fertilizer. Opponents claim that such products are inadequately tested and may result in unknown dangers.
The biggest issue with the objections to GMO crops that I see is that opponents to frequently fundamentally misunderstand what it is they are objecting to. They see modern genetic engineering as doing something so completely unnatural and alien that we can’t possibly know what the consequences are, neglecting the obvious fact that cross-pollination is, at a fundamental level, no different than the genetic engineering that humans and nature have been practicing for millennia by painting pollen from one plant onto pollen of another. What we do in a modern genotyping lab is much, much more precise, and is to cross-pollination what the tiniest oil painter’s line brush is to a paint roller.
So what exactly is a genetically-modified organism, and how does genetic engineering differ from the artificial crop development that mankind has been practicing for thousands upon thousands of years? Cross-pollination is, as we said, how nature and farmers and scientists started out shaping genetic information in plants. Plants can be hybridized easily – a lot more easily than animals – but there’s still a limit as to how far away the species can be and still produce viable offspring. The biggest difference between cross-pollination and genetic engineering in a lab is that we can move individual genes from one plant species to another without regard for how far away the species are. This means we can, for instance, isolate a gene for frost resistance in one plant species and then transfer that gene to another plant to help that species grow in harsher climates. This is much faster, and much more efficient than cross-pollination and has a higher success rate – simply put, genetic engineering allows us much higher precision and much lower turnaround times with significant improvement in control over the process.
The very first GMOs were medicinal – synthetic insulin was the first widely-available GMO and was approved by the FDA in 1982, and is now how all modern insulin is produced, saving hundreds of thousands of lives of people with diabetes each and every year. Human growth horomone can be produced this way, and it used to have to be harvested from cadavers and is used for treating conditions from Prader–Willi syndrome to certain types of cranial tumors. The vaccine for Hepatitis B was developed through the use of GMOs in 1987. Genetic engineering is also responsible for the oil-eating bacteria used in industrial applications. When designing improved food crops through traditional hybridization, one of the principle barriers is that the new offspring are often sterile, particularly when the species being cross pollinated are too far apart. Through GMO hybridization, this barrier can often be overcome. (And could potentially be used by agricultural business to enforce seed patents, though so far, most have either pledged not to, or haven’t due to (rightly) intense opposition from consumers, NGOs, and some governments.1)
When we apply this technology to food crops, the benefits become immediately clear – we can take the strength of one plant, like frost resistance or immunity to some disease, and transfer that resistance to a vulnerable species. Rust fungus, for instance, is a disease that attacks all cereal grains but rice, for some reason, is immune. If we can figure out how to transfer that immunity to cereals like wheat and barley, we have a better crop that is resistant to one more disease. We get better yields, we get to use fewer chemicals, and everybody – including the environment – wins.
Genetic modification techniques really started to be used in the 1940’s when Mexico found itself unable to feed its people, and asked for help from the world. Within a few years, the International Rice Research Institute was founded, and in 1962, a new strain of rice called IR8 was created which helped feed people all over the world, and it made a huge impact on world hunger. In 1962, we weren’t able to directly manipulate plant genes, and so IR8 was created by careful cross-pollination, selection of the best plants from each generation, crossing them again, and then finally finding the best, and it truly demonstrates the power of modified crops: with no fertilizer, straight out of the proverbial box, IR8 produces five times the yield of traditional varieties. With nitrogen fertilizer, it can produce ten times the yield of traditional varieties. In 1980, IR36 came around, resisting pests and growing fast enough to allow two crops each year instead of just one, doubling the yield. In 1990 we saw IR72, which outperformed even IR36.
Of course, no discussion of the Green Revolution or GMOs in general would be complete without a mention of Norman Borlaug, the man who led the charge for better wheat varieties in places like Mexico, Pakistan, and India. He was a recipient of a 1977 US Presidential Medal of Freedom winner, 2006 Congressional Gold Medal winner, and Nobel Peace Prize recipient. The unanimous act of Congress states “Dr. Borlaug has saved more lives than any other person who has ever lived, and likely has saved more lives in the Islamic world than any other human being in history.” The Nobel committee put a number on this, estimating that he was personally and directly responsible for saving over one billion human beings in developing nations from starvation. Dr. Borlaug did it by pioneering the use of hybrid and genetically modified crops, designing new strains that could thrive in arid conditions where pesticides or herbicides were not available. He’s also known for “Borlaug’s Hypothesis” which proposes that the best way to reduce deforestation is to reduce demand for new farmland by using our best existing farmland to its maximum potential.
Not everyone, however, is enamored with genetic modification. Almost every day there’s a story floating around on /r/progressive about how the “Monsanto bill” is making our food supply unsafe and infecting us all with GMOs. Every fight over labeling requirements that involves foods made from genetically-modified plants gets construed by the “GMO truthers” as a fight to contaminate our food supply with GMOs and while keeping the public in the dark about it. “People have a right to know if they’re eating genetically-modified organisms!” Do they understand what exactly they’re protesting? Greenpeace is really the poster child for GMO alarmism – destroying GMO crops in full hazmat suits not only in industrialized western nations, but also in developing nations where public understanding of science is nonexistent. Certainly, Greenpeace wouldn’t do something that drastic unless there was some very compelling toxicological reason to do so, one would think. There must be very good, solid evidence that GMO crops should only be handled by hazardous materials disposal teams and represent a clear danger to unsuspecting people…right? Here are some of the ideas groups like Greenpeace promote, and the responses from the scientific community:
“European scientists think GMOs are bad.” or “Europe banned some GMO” or “European citizens refuse to eat GMOs”.
This is not remotely true. European scientists have disagreed vigorously with European politicians and political bodies over their ignorant and self-destructive actions on this subject.2, 3 More importantly there is very little research coming from European scientists that show a negative impact of GMOs.
“Claim: GMOs cause cancer, autism, diabetes, allergies, etc.”
So much tripe of this flavor oozes out from the Natural News website that it’s almost impossible to keep up with the drivel. Natural News is a big website in the “everything natural is good for you” movement, which has pushed every crackpot theory you can imagine, from water fluoridation killing us all (it isn’t) to AIDS/HIV denialism (What?) and most worringly, anti-vaccination bullshit that is not only wrong, it actually kills children. There is, needless to say, no scientific support for any of these ridiculous claims.
Recently, I’ve seen a study making the rounds from France that claims to show that rats fed GMO corn get cancer. That study has been thoroughly debunked4 for for poor methodology and statistical fishing5, and no one has been able to reproduce their results.
“GMOs contain toxins.” or “The production of unexpected toxins and allergens. Because genetic engineering is a very imprecise technology, the insertion of foreign genes can stimulate the production of unexpected proteins, which may prove toxic or allergenic.”
First of all, it’s hardly a “very imprecise technology”; anyone who has any idea (or does a modicum of research into the topic) of the processes and technology involved is aware of this. It produces far more precisely designed results than can be hoped for with simple cross pollination. The very purpose of the research is to avoid toxic or allergenic results. When these results are found in GMOs, those products are not sent to the market. Duh.
The simple fact is that GMOs do not put toxins into anything. Could they? Theoretically yes. You could produce a daisy that spits out cyanide gas, but genetic modification is just a tool. The evil scientists that aren’t working on the cyanide gas daisies are working on GMO crops that have increased yields, better drought resistance, and need fewer fertilizers and pesticides on them. If you want to ban something ban the product itself – if it’s actually harmful, but banning the technology is idiotic and counter-productive because it can be used to make any number of things.
The “GMOs are fine but let consumers choose”, or “The labeling argument”.
There has been a movement afoot to force companies to label GMO food. Their argument is whether or not you think GMO is harmful (it is most definitely not) consumers have a right to be informed about what they are eating. The argument is framed in “right-to-know” language, but the way I see it, it’s really just fear-mongering by an organic-food industry in cahoots with alternative-medicine wackos.
GMOs are not an “total solution”, something we should use all the time just because we can. They’re a tool – sometimes their use is warranted, sometimes it’s not. Requiring products to label when they contain genetically-modified organisms is not only semantically silly (which modifications? How “modified” is “modified”?) but it will result in them rotting on the shelf – the negative press and general consumer distrust (and lack of understanding) of genetic modification will cripple and destroy GMO farmers, especially small farmers. Monsanto, of course, being a multinational corporation, can survive it, but the average small farmer will not. Any label slapped onto GMO foods will connote something negative, where there is in fact no scientific basis for such a fear. Public policy like food labeling must be based on science. If Trader Joe’s or Whole Foods wants to profit off people’s ignorance and fear, that is their right – up to a certain point, but the government shouldn’t force companies to do something based on fear-mongering and science illiteracy.
Genetic modification is not an ingredient, it’s a process. It’s a technology. It’s called “agriculture”, and we’ve been doing it for literally thousands of years. There is no useful information to be gleaned from knowing your Cheerios were made from GMO wheat vs organic wheat, or non-GMO conventional wheat.
Anti-GMO Sentiment and the Economics of Being Poor
Where programs like these end up doing actual harm to people is in food prices. Fresh fruits and vegetables are generally more expensive than dry non-perishables, (with some big caveats based on location and local growing conditions, general shelf life, etc.) and organic fresh produce is way more expensive than the regular stuff. (The arguments in this section apply equally to organic and non-GMO foods) I took some pictures at my local Harris Teeter last time I was there just to get a good feel for how much of a price difference there was between organic foodstuffs and their conventionally-grown counterparts:
Organic food is freakin’ expensive. And there’s a very good reason for that – the premium price of organic food is there because, in addition to whatever crazy markup for having the organic label the grocer wants to slap on, organic farming methods, as we previously discussed, result in much lower yields per acre, and that means greater losses and more waste for less product, and that means higher prices. If you demand food in your supermarket that is organically-grown, then you are saying that you agree to pay the higher prices for such a product – but not everyone has that luxury. We have a growing population, and it needs food – lots of it. A vote for organic is a vote to destroy more forests and natural land, and vote for higher food prices that will hit the least well-off among us the hardest. In the case of anti-GMO sentiment, the picture is even worse – take California’s Proposition 37 for instance: their law imposes a 0.5% purity standard, which would likely require farmers to invest in separate planting, harvesting, storage, hauling, processing, and packaging equipment for GE production in order to avoid revenue losses and liability from contaminating their non-GE operations or those of competitors.
My point is this: the more inefficient we are with land usage, whether it’s through anti-GMO legislation or organic farming, the more we drive up food prices, especially for fresh fruits and vegetables, the very thing we really need to be eating more of. Low-income youth and female populations are more vulnerable to obesity due in part to a lack of access to fresh, high-quality fruits and vegetables6. Do we really need to make choices that make their food access and security problems worse for them?
Conventional growing techniques with today’s best fertilizers and the science of agricultural genetic engineering holds great promise for the world – staple foods with higher nutritional content to help combat malnutrition in the developing world, and crops that can withstand the harshest weather conditions in some of the most food-deprived and poor places in the world. It’s a win for us all.
Organic Livestock
The eagle-eyed among you will notice that I haven’t really talked about organic standards for livestock, because as it turns out, it’s complicated.
Again – what we don’t want to do is lump a variety of disparate practices together under a single label of “organic” or “conventional” and then passionately tow the party line without critical analysis. This is a false dichotomy, and we should reject it. The moral and health issues of mass livestock production are many, and we need to examine them one by one to make an informed decision about the validity of each practice. Further, animals – unlike plants (we think) – are living, breathing, metabolizing creatures that are not only able to feel, they are able to suffer, and so we have a moral imperative to make sure that they do not do so unnecessarily or gratuitously.
And this is where we run into a lot of sticky issues, because there are very good reasons to think that the conventional methods of raising the animals that we eat leaves much to be desired.
The number one issue with conventionally-grown meat is the low-level use of antibiotics to promote weight gain. Decades ago, researchers and farmers discovered that small, “subtheraputic” doses of antibiotics administered daily would make animals gain as much as 3% more weight than they otherwise would. 3% doesn’t sound particularly great, but it was revolutionary in an industry where profits are measured in pennies per animal. While the exact mechanism isn’t precisely known, it’s thought that the antibiotics – like tetracycline – kill off the normal intestinal and gut flora and allow the animals to digest the food they eat more effectively. We also give antibiotics to sick animals, but that’s not controversial because few argue that sick animals should not be treated. The meat industry doesn’t publicize the numbers regardings its use of antibiotics, so accurate information on the amount of antibiotics given to food animals is hard to come by. Stuart B. Levy, M.D., who has studied the subject for years, estimates that there are 15-17 million pounds of antibiotics used sub-therapeutically in the United States each year. The danger in that comes from – as you may have guessed – antibiotic resistance in humans.
Concern over just that sort of resistance becoming a problem in a world already plagued by wee beasties such as methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus8 that threaten incredible difficulty in finding effective therapies to treat them is one reason why Canada and many European Union countries have banned the use of sub-therapeutic doses of antibiotics in meat. In fact, the World Health Organization is concerned enough about antibiotic resistance in meat to recommend significantly curtailing or perhaps eliminating non-therapeutic antibiotic use in all livestock animals. In a recent report, the WHO declared its intention to “reduce the overuse and misuse of antimicrobials in food animals for the protection of human health.” Specifically, the WHO recommended that prescriptions be required for all antibiotics used to treat sick food animals, and urged efforts to “terminate or rapidly phase out antimicrobials for growth promotion if they are used for human treatment.”
Unfortunately, the data on just how exposed we are to potentially-resistant pathogens in supermarket livestock is lacking – but we have not only a biologically-plausible hypothesis but good reason to believe that resistant bacteria might already be being spread through this process: In one study published in the New England Journal of Medicine on February 6, 2002, researchers found links that strongly suggested that the people who developed Cipro-resistant bacteria had acquired them by eating pork that were contaminated with Salmonella. The report concluded that Salmonella-resistant to the antibiotic flouroquine can be spread from swine to humans, and, therefore, the use of flouroquinolones in food animals should be prohibited. Another New England Journal of Medicine study from Oct. 18, 2001, found that 20 percent of ground meat obtained in supermarkets contained salmonella. Of that 20 percent that was contaminated with Salmonella, 84 percent was resistant to at least one form of antibiotic.
It’s worth noting here that the United States (and the developed world) sees a general over-prescription of antibiotics in general – people go to the doctor for the sniffles, and they expect to be given a prescription for an antibiotic, whether or not their disease is bacterial. The problem here is that we lack definitive data on just how much agricultural use of sub-therapeutic antibiotics contributes to the current population and distribution of resistant bacteria – and that’s work that needs to be done. However as we noted before, we have a very plausible method by which we’re hurting ourselves for short-term gains, and might want to rethink that policy. However, the standards of the USDA National Organic Program require that no antibiotics or synthetic drugs or parasiticides of any kind be used on the animals, and if they are (in the course of medical treatment) that animal may no longer be sold as organic. Again here we’re seeing the issue of adherence to a strict ideology. All-out vs. NO antibiotic treatments at all is just silly – “organic or not” is a false dichotomy as we’ve discussed before, and we need better and more complete information before we decide how to proceed.
We need to have better data on just how much antibiotics are used, and which ones in what quantities – data that we just don’t have at this time. We need to have programs that collect and analyze this data, so we can do the appropriate studies to determine the extent of the resistant strains issues, and to what extent using some (if any?) antibiotics on our livestock will lead to better outcomes.
Another organic food advocates bring up when talking about choosing what meat to eat is the well-being and comfort of the animals involved. Chicken is not some plant that grows in a bucket with herbs and spices – chickens are living and breathing creatures that are capable of suffering, and – like almost every farm animal in any kind of concentrated feed lot-type operation in the United States – they do. Commercial livestock operations are notorious for their callous disregard for the well-being of their animals, from throwing unwanted male baby chicks into grinders alive to be disposed of (probably a quick death, but extraordinarily brutal), to giving milk cows rGBH to increase milk production and causing them a severe reduction in their quality of life9, to not ensuring that cattle are properly stunned before slaughtering them. These are real concerns, but are they solved by organic farming?
The short answer is “not generally”. The USDA Organic program sets a few provisions for animal welfare in their standards, among these are10: “preventive management practices must be used to keep animals healthy. Producers may not withhold treatment from sick or injured animals.”, “Ruminants must be out on pasture for the entire grazing season, but for not less than 120 days…[They] must receive at least 30 percent of their feed…from pasture.”, “All organic livestock are required to have access to the outdoors year-round.”. Sounds good, but terms like “access to the outdoors” are not legally defined, and so as you can imagine in an industry obsessed with cutting costs and maximizing profits, a tiny one-foot patch of dirt with cage around it qualifies. Animal welfare concerns are simply not addressed by organic vs non-organic…these are questions that need to be answered, to be sure, but won’t be by the question of organic vs. non-organic. Perhaps they need to be addressed by the USDA and the National Organic Standards Board, but the question of animal welfare isn’t relevant, scientifically speaking, to the question of the safety of farmed meat. I’m not saying this doesn’t concern me – it does. I feel particularly uneasy about eating pork because pigs are intelligent and I happen to think they’re adorable, and I don’t like suffering. If you’re concerned about it, the Animal Welfare Approved website is a great place to start learning more about the issue. To address the scientific question of healthfulness though, a more relevant query is: are animals grown for mass consumption raised in such a way that the spread of disease and parasites is minimized within the population, and slaughtered in a way that ensures cross-contamination is either minimized or eliminated, in a clean and safe environment?
The answer, as I’m sure you’ve come to expect by now when examining an issue critically, is “it depends”. The best information I was able to find on the subject is the meta-analysis “Food Safety and Organic Meats”, published by Annual Reviews in 201211.
The first point that the analysis makes is that the word “organic” as applied to food, carries with it a set of legally-binding regulations with it that almost no other marketing term does, such as “free-range”, “naturally-raised”, “free-roaming” and “pasture”. These types of livestock production are often referred to as “organic” by consumers and sometimes are conflated with “organic” in the scientific literature on the subject. They also point out that there are no stricter safety regulations in place for organic vs. non-organic livestock; organic foods are required to meet the same food safety standards as nonorganic foods. And further, the safety hazards associated with organic meats are unclear because studies comparing the two types of meat are often contradictory.
The analysis points to several studies12 that assert that the microbial danger of organic food production has the potential to actually be higher than conventional, because because of the strict restrictions in the use of pharmaceutical agents for therapeutic use (such as antimicrobials or parasiticides), raising the animals outdoors, use of slow-growing breeds and the use of smaller slaughtering facilities. With free-range practices, there is a greater risk of infection from wildlife to farm animals via greater exposure to pathogens carried by parasites, rats, mice, birds, and pathogens in soil. Conversely however, food safety risks could be reduced because of the lower animal stocking rates typically associated with organic production.
The analysis also points out that actual data to support a hard and fast pro or anti-organic stance. As the authors note:
Not only are there limited data on the microbiological safety of organic meat production practices, but more importantly, there is a lack of definitive research because of the much more difficult task of conducting truly direct comparative studies between conventional and organic systems where confounding factors can be either removed or at least taken into account…
…Although the results of most studies revealed that pathogens are more or equally prevalent in organically raised and conventionally raised animals, results of some studies indicate the opposite (Tables 2–4).
The analysis then goes into a very detailed breakdown of the numbers of contaminated animals at a variety of farms, looking at different contaminants (Salmonella, Campylobacter, E. coli, Staph aureus, L. monocytogenes, etc.) and at different points in the process (feed, fecal samples, cloacal swabs (fun), carcasses at the slaughterhouse, retail, The (paraphrased) results of the analyses are:
Poultry: for Salmonella, the data are conflicting, sometimes directly and sometimes because it’s not clear from the studies analyzed whether organic chicken carcasses were from USDA-certified organic birds, pasture-raised birds, or free-range birds. The studies that found higher Salmonella infections on organic birds suggested that it was possibly due to the birds greater access to the outdoors, where they are exposed to wild birds, insects, rodents and their droppings, and other potential carriers of the organism. They also point out that chicks raised on organic and pasture/free-range farms are typically purchased from conventional hatcheries. It is well-documented that hatcheries can be one of the main sources for Salmonella contamination of newly hatched chicks.
For Campylobacter, which causes food poisoning with flu-like symptoms, the prevalence on organically-raised birds were always higher, sometimes much more so. One study found 100% prevalence of Campylobacter in the intestinal contents of pasture-raised birds. Another study determined that 100% of cloacal swabs of organic broiler flocks and 37% of conventional broiler flocks at the slaughterhouse were contaminated with Campylobacter; however, 96% of chicken carcasses rinsed and tested for Campylobacter at the processing plant were positive. The contamination percentages of Enterococcus, E. coliand Enterobacteriaceae were higher on organic chickens, but no difference in contamination was detected for Staphylococcus aureus and Listeria monocytogenes. The study also points out that variations in seasons, hatchery sources, feed composition, vaccination programs, flock- disease status, breeds, and intervention strategies may influence the variation in Campylobacter prevalence.
My reading of this is that poultry that is organically-grown has the potential to be more contaminated with these organisms, and that is a legitimate concern. However, since they are destroyed by cooking the meat to the proper temperature, cook your damn chicken.
Pork: results for pork are similar to poultry: the studied pigs show either a higher prevalence of the bacteria in question, or no differences when compared to conventionally-grown pork, but there are some important differences. One study reported a significantly higher prevalence of Campylobacter coli in pigs grown under antimicrobial-free conditions than in conventionally grown pigs at nursery farms (77% versus 28%). However, no significant differences were detected at the finishing farms (53% versus 56%), which the authors indicate may mean that the absence of antimicrobials does not influence the final Campylobacter contamination. As always, however, raising the animals outdoors does put them at higher risk of infection. Another study found much higher prevalence of E. Coli at retail on organic pork (65% vs. 48%).
Salmonella infection is interesting. “An initial factor” the authors write, “is the introduction of Salmonella into the herd.” This could be the result of an infected pig being introduced into the herd, stress caused by transportation resulting in increased Salmonella shedding rates (apparently this is a thing that happens with pigs) or contact with contaminated environmental elements, like equipment or wild birds or rats. Another vector is transmission between pigs, which can be influenced by floor type, bedding material, pen separation, herd size, stocking density, water supply, mixing of pigs resulting in more stress, cleaning and disinfecting of the pens, and presence of the pathogens on caretaker’s boots. A third factor is the proliferation of Salmonella within the pig’s digestive system. One study pointed out that although pigs raised outdoors are a greater risk for infection from the environment (as opposed to an indoor controlled environment), these risks can be counteracted by good hygiene, management, and feeding practices. In the aforementioned study, the risk for acquiring Salmonella was mostly attributed to the introduction of Salmonella by purchasing infected pigs that were added to the herd and by transporting the pigs, which causes stress and can induce higher rates of Salmonella shedding.
Pork is also notable for its potential for infection with parasites, such as Trichinella and Toxoplasma. The analysis states “In a comparative study between pigs raised in intensive conventional, organic, and free-range housing systems, 0.38%, 2.7%, and 5.6%, respectively, of the pigs were infected with T. gondii, indicating that outdoor farming results in greater opportunities for parasitic infections.” However, pigs raised organically on many of the farms were not infected, which illustrates that it is possible to control parasitic infections at the farm level, even for pigs raised with outdoor access.
Beef: There are only limited data on the prevalence of pathogens in cattle raised under organic or natural conditions for meat. The authors state: “Given the lack of data comparing food safety issues in conventional and alternative beef production, results from more studies are needed before definitive conclusions can be made regarding food safety in organic beef.” So we’ll skip this one until more and better data becomes available.
Antimicrobial resistance of pathogens
In conventional livestock raising methods, subtheraputic antibiotic doses can be used as growth promotors (as discussed above) or as preventative therapeutic agents to prevent disease, and at higher doses they are used to control infections in animals populations. As we discussed above, there is significant concern about the use of antibiotics in livestock animals leading to the evolution of resistant organisms. The restricted use of antibiotics in organic livestock production may reduce the risk of development of antibiotic resistance in bacteria and thus may contribute to the effectiveness of antibiotics for human or animal treatments. So at what rates do we find more resistant microbes on conventionally-raised vs. organic meats?
Poultry: Antimicrobial use in poultry is already limited, however several studies have demonstrated that bacteria found on organic poultry show drug resistance traits. The degree of resistance, though, varied greatly, especially when compared to conventionally-raised birds, at processing and at the farm, with several studies showing lower prevalence of antimicrobial-resistant bacteria on meat from organic and pasture-grown poultry. Another study, however, showed no significant difference in the prevalence of antimicrobial-resistant Campylobacter on meat from either organically or conventionally grown birds. Variations in antimicrobial resistance results by pathogen can be a function of differences in susceptibility testing methods, the standards of different countries / institutions, and the culture methods used (some bacteria may or may not express their resistance genes outside of the host environment.)
Pork: The meta-analysis included several studies which looked at pork production. In one study cited, significantly less antimicrobial-resistant (ampicillin, doxycycline, sulfisoxazole) E. coli developed in organically produced pork compared with conventionally produced pork. In addition, the study did not observe any resistance to antibiotics which are currently banned in the in pork industry, which lends weight to the theory that the development of resistant organisms correlates with the increased use of antibiotics in farming. They did, however, find higher concentrations of E. Coli in the organically-raised pigs, but these were found to be more susceptible to antibiotics than E. Coli isolated from conventionally-grown pork.
This does not necessarily hold true for Salmonella, however, and the study’s authors hypothesize that this is because E. Coli develops resistance far faster than Salmonella; put simply, it evolves faster.
However, antimicrobial resistance patterns, as well as multidrug resistance, were also commonly detected in swine herds raised under both organic and conventional systems – though the pathogens isolated show different resistance profiles. But Campylobacter isolated from conventional systems exhibited significantly more often single and often multidrug resistance compared with Campylobacter isolated from antimicrobial-free systems. Simply banning antibiotics does not preclude the possibility of herd infection with resistant bacteria, it can, however, lower it. Direct antimicrobial use does make a difference, and we would expect it to, but environmental factors also play a part.
Beef: This one gets a little weird. The studies for beef in this area are limited to two relevant studies, so clearly more research needs to be done in this area. The first, Reinstein et al. (2009), concluded: “there were “no major differences in antibiotic susceptibility patterns” of E. coli isolates among organically, naturally, and conventionally raised cattle. However, MICs13 for 12 of the 33 antibiotics were significantly different. The MICs of gentamicin and neomycin were higher for conventionally raised cattle and the MICs for nine other antibiotics (amikacin, apramycin, cefoxitin, ceftriaxone, kanamycin, nalidixic acid, penicillin, rifampin, and tetracycline) were lower for conventionally raised cattle than for naturally or organically raised cattle.”
The other study came to some of the same counter-intuitive conclusions. They detected no differences in the prevalence of the bacterium in question, but the resistance patterns were all over the map. Ampicillin, doxycycline, gentamicin, and sulfisoxazole resistance were significantly higher in E. Coli samples from conventional beef, and ciprofloxacin resistance was significantly higher in E. coli from organic beef.
They authors of the meta-analysis make no attempt to explain what might be going on here, and I won’t even attempt to interpret these particular findings. Statistical noise? Who knows. All this tells me is that we need more, and better, data.
Conclusions
The first and foremost conclusion we can draw from these studies is – again – that we should reject the false dichotomy of organic vs. non-organic. It’s a meaningless comparison. Direct comparisons are nigh-impossible because of the immeasurably vast number of variables, which all differ based on which type of animal population is being considered. Clearly, when it comes to contamination with potentially-pathogenic bacteria, organic production has a long way to go, and we should find ways to minimize contamination in organic systems of production. Animals that live outdoors, “as nature intended”, are more likely to have parasites that can infect humans. However, in general, bacteria isolated from conventional livestock growing conditions has a higher likelihood of having antimicrobial resistance compared with organically-raised animals, and the use of antibiotics in livestock production is something we should not only be concerned about but should seek to reduce to only absolutely necessary interventions.
My interpretation of these findings is that organic meat’s traits probably do not justify its higher price, though I have no problem buying it personally because I vehemently disagree with the overuse of antibiotic use in livestock. Not using subtheraputic levels of antibiotics as growth promotants is a Good Thing. But they also don’t use any antibiotics at all to keep their animals healthy (though they do use other methods) and this can lead to higher levels of pathogens on organic meat, although the pathogens on organic meat are generally more sensitive to antibiotic treatment.
What we should do is integrate the best practices from both modalities to obtain the most desirable outcome. Stop using antibiotics as growth promotants, but still use them when indicated to treat infections within livestock populations. Find the balance between minimizing the chance of their coming into contact with potential pathogens while still giving them a good quality of life. Be okay with using anti-parasite drugs to control the risk of contracting pathogens like Trichinella to humans who consume the meat. Figure out best practices and then use them, and be extremely wary of meaningless blanket statements defending either organic farming or conventional farming as a whole.
Because this entry got a lot longer than I expected it to, we’ll talk about farmer’s markets and the efficiency of our food-delivery systems in the 4th and final installment of our discussion.
Exit, stage left.
Sparks
1: Most people concerned about this erroneously believe that so-called terminator genes are actually employed by businesses currently. That is false. The technology has not been used commercially by any company as of this writing.
2: No risk with GMO food, says EU chief scientific advisor
3: Europe needs genetically modified food, scientists say
4: GM Corn-Tumor Link Based on Poor Science
5:
6: Why Low-Income and Food Insecure People are Vulnerable to Overweight and Obesity, Food Research and Action Center
7: Interview with Dr. Morris, PBS.
8: Note if you happen to visit the Wikipedia page for MRSA if you’re not accustomed to medical images – some of the pictures are Not Safe For Life.
9: CAFOs Uncovered, Union of Concerned Scientists. [PDF Warning]
10: Organic Production and Handling Standards, United States Department of Agriculture. [PDF Warning]
11: As this report is (somewhat unusually) not in JSTOR or any of the journal repositories to which Vanderbilt University has access to, I e-mailed the authors directly as a last-ditch effort before actually buying the article. Big thanks to Dr. Steven C. Ricke for sending me a free copy and several other related texts on the subject, and suggesting a book on the subject.
12: Engvall 2001, Institute of Food Technologists 2006, Thamsborg 2002
13: Minimum Inhibitory Concentration, basically what the dosage of a given antibiotic needs to be in order to inhibit the growth of whatever type of bacterium that particular drug targets.