Pharmaceutical Company View On Changing Science Of Antibiotic Resistance - Dr. Sara J. Steinlage, Chief Veterinary Officer, Elanco, from the 2018 NIAA Antibiotic Symposium: New Science & Technology Tools for Antibiotic Stewardship, November 13-15, 2018, Overland Park, KS, USA.
More presentations at https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL8ZKJKD9cmEffjOrjbBvQZeN2_SZB_Skc
The share of broilers raised without antibiotics expanded rapidly. Between 2010 -2015 the % grew from under 5% to just under 10%. Then commitments from major food retailers & food service companies, as well as, major food brands led to an excellerated supply expansion to over almost 45% of the broilers today.
There are significant impacts to mortality – plotted here by average mortality between conventional, raised without antibiotics, and birds raised under animal-only programs (ionophores and/or antibiotics not used in human medicine).
Early in the transition to RWA, avg. mortality was a great deal higher compared to CNV and ANO which also suffered from volatility, possibly indicated the approach to still figuring out how to successfully manage in an RWA setting. More recently the mortality rates for RWA have started to stabilize,
On the one hand, this indicates that poultry producers have been very successful at adopting their management practices and approach to raising birds without antibiotics. On the other hand, we still see that avg. mortality remains 15% - 25% higher than CNV or ANO.
We can also see that an ANO program can mitigate a lot of the increase in mortality experienced in an RWA setting.
In addition to mortality impacts, there are implications to RWA that more broadly affect animal welfare. Summarized here are the finding of a study presented at the IPPE earlier this year.
Using data from the Elanco Health Tracking Study (HTSi) we find an increased risk of occurrence and severity of three painful and serious disease states -- ammonia burns in the cornea, footpad lesions and airsacculitis.
All three of these conditions are associated with poor/wet litter conditions and are tied to enteric health. Ammonia burns in the eyes are painful ulcerations on the cornea, foodpad lesions can result in further bacteria infection and result in lameness/reduced walkabaility, and airsacculitis causes respiratory distress with neck swelling and difficulty breathing.
All three of these conditions increase in the average risk of occurrence in RWA setting.
In another paper, data was collected on the performance impacts of RWA looking at four key factors: mortality (which we discussed), grow-out time, density, and downtime. A simulation model was then built that estimated the impact on supply as result of these inefficiencies and then calculated how many more RWA birds would be needed to keep supply constant if 100% of the market went RWA compared to conventional.
More birds means more resources to produce the same amount of food.
In addition to decreased animal welfare and increased medically important antibiotic use, raising birds without antibiotic compromises sustainability efforts by driving up the feed, water and land needed to produce the same amount of protein.