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The use of hormones and antibiotics is an integral part of conventional meat production in Australia today. Many mainstream farmers rely on veterinary drugs, pesticides and synthetically produced stockfeed additives to grow food animals. The industrial meat production system demands fast growth and maximum weight gains, and this has been assisted by advances in animal science and medicine during the past 50 years. However, while we should be thankful that we have improved upon the tenth-century treatment for sick cattle which recommended that the farmer ‘sprinkle holy water upon them, burn upon them incense and give the tenth penny in the Church of God’,[1] have we now become too sophisticated with our knowledge and application of science?
While some consumers fear that the use of vaccines, antibiotics and other drugs in our meat-producing animals may be harmful, it is these very technologies that guarantee us disease-free, healthy meat. In fact, without veterinary medicines Australia might not even have a meat industry. The early European colonisers brought with them diseases of European sheep, cattle, chickens and pigs. These included the deadly and highly contagious foot-and-mouth disease in cattle, of which there were several outbreaks in the early 1870s in New South Wales and Victoria.
Tuberculosis and bovine pneumonia also affected cattle, while sheep scab, Cumberland disease and anthrax claimed parts of the first Australian sheep flock. Before the development of vaccines and antibiotics, slaughtering-out herds was the only method of control. With great perseverance this worked. Fortunately, farms were few and far between in early Australia, which limited the spread of infectious disease. To contain disease this way today would be difficult if not impossible. Now, modern medicine has intervened.
Vaccinations prevent most of the common diseases of the cattle, sheep, pig and chicken meat industries today. Antibiotics reliably control bacterial outbreaks and parasite treatments control lice, ticks and worms, which can also cause sickness in animals. The use of veterinary medicines has also extended from not only treating and preventing disease but to aiding production, with veterinary products commonly used to promote quicker growth in meat animals. This is all well and good but are today’s farmers addicted to the over-use of veterinary drugs?
Chicken farmers have definitely taken a bad rap for drug-pushing over the years. They have been accused of using growth-promoting hormones to grow their chickens big, fast. In fact, chicken meat has been blamed as the cause of young girls today reaching puberty earlier. So is there any truth to this?
Hormones were originally used in chickens as an alternative to the physical castration of male chickens to produce capons. Administering the hormone oestrogen to male chickens did the same job as removing the bird’s testes manually—a tricky job in itself—by stopping the production of the male sex hormones. No male sex hormones meant the meat of the bird was softer and tastier to eat. However, the use of oestrogen hormones in chickens was banned in Australia in 1960 after it was linked with cancer and other health problems in humans. It was also banned internationally. The peak body representing chicken growers and processors, the Australian Chicken Meat Federation (ACMF), states emphatically that no hormones are fed or administered to any poultry in Australia.[2]
The industry claims meat chickens are bigger today due to selective breeding and cross-breeding programs over the past 60 years, not the use of hormones. The meat chicken is bred for fast growth, efficient feed conversion and size. It is a vastly different bird to the egg chicken or layer with which people are most familiar. Hormonal growth promotants (stilbenes) are routinely tested for by the National Residue Survey (NRS) program. No positive results have been found in Australian chicken meat for 40 years. So the modern meat chicken is not responsible for early on-set puberty in girls. Perhaps confusion arises because, although hormonal growth promotants have been banned, other non-hormonal growth promotants are legally used in mainstream chicken meat production.
Substances which promote more efficient feed conversion are given to birds and meat animals to speed up muscle growth. Antibiotics are among these, as they control bacteria that can interfere with the gut’s ability to absorb nutrients. This means less feed is needed and less waste is produced. Since the 1950s antibiotics have been used widely around the world, including Australia, to promote growth in meat animals, with Australia importing about 700 tonnes of antibiotics per year.[3] One-third is used for human treatment and two-thirds for veterinary treatment with most of this added to stockfeed as a growth promotant.
The ACMF says, however, that the use of antibiotics for this purpose has decreased since the 1970s. Other meat industries make similar claims. Consumer health consciousness and increasing knowledge about antibiotic resistance in animal and human diseases has discouraged their use.
Chicken producers use other food additives to promote growth in birds. Some are made from synthetic chemicals and some are naturally occurring. They include acidifiers, probiotics, enzymes, beta-agonists, microflora enhancers and immunomodulators. They may take the form of herbal products such as holy basil or Indian gooseberry, neem oil, yeast cultures or other vitamin and mineral supplements. These substances are added to the flock’s feed ration to help them convert their feed to meat quickly and efficiently. For those of us who prefer our chicken ‘all natural’ this may not be desirable, but for the chicken farmer who needs to compete in the market and produce the 843,000 tonnes of chicken meat that Australians consume every year, size does matter.[4]
While hormonal growth promotants (HGPs) are banned in chicken meat and egg production and in the dairy industry, and are not used in lamb production, they are approved by the Australian Pesticides and Veterinary Medicines Authority (APVMA) for use in beef and pork. The United States also approves them for this purpose, but in Europe they are banned from use in all meat-producing animals.
At least 40 per cent of Australian beef supplied to our domestic market, and overseas markets, is HGP-treated. Australians eat more than 35 kilograms of beef per person per year.[5] All fresh, raw beef sold in Australia is Australian-grown. (Australia has strict regulations about importing raw beef due to concerns over mad cow disease, foot-and-mouth and other diseases that could potentially decimate the Australian beef industry.) HGPs are synthetic hormones developed 30 years ago and widely used by farmers and feedlot operators in all Australian states except for Tasmania. They are another tool provided by science and technology to increase production that has benefited both the farmer and the consumer.
HGPs work in the same way as the human growth hormones (HGHs) used by body builders who want to develop muscle mass quickly. They basically help a beast put on more kilos of beef in a shorter timeframe. The slow-release pellet, which contains a form of oestrogen, progesterone and testosterone, is implanted under the skin on the back of the beast’s ear. The implant releases a low dosage of hormone over about 100 days. Farmers and feedlot operators argue that HGPs don’t actually harm the animal, but just make it grow faster by converting its feed to muscle more efficiently. Animal welfare activists claim this is unnatural and burdens the animal’s physiological development. Some cattle treated with HGPs show unwanted side effects, including increased aggression. A rare few animals experience medical conditions such as swellings, vaginal and rectal prolapse, and physical abnormalities such as a raised tail head.[6]
Whether or not hormone implant residues in beef pose a health risk to humans is a controversial topic. The Australian meat industry claims independent research in Australia and overseas has shown that beef treated with HGPs is completely safe.[7] The APVMA agrees, hence the product’s approval for use in Australia. The three natural steroidal hormone components of modern HGPs are the same as those used in human oral contraceptives. These hormones are naturally present in foods of animal origin and some plant foods. It’s claimed that HGP-treated beef has lower levels of hormones of concern than many other commonly eaten foods. Meat & Livestock Australia state that a person would need to eat 77 kilograms of beef from treated steers to get the same amount of oestrogen as found in one hen egg.[8] Or that 200 kilograms of beef from a treated steer would have to be eaten to get the levels of oestrogen found in a serving of cabbage.
The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations and the World Health Organization’s 1999 Joint Expert Committee on Food Additives estimated that a person consuming 500 grams of meat from implanted cattle would consume an extra 30 to 50 nanograms of oestradiol per day (a nanogram is one-billionth of a gram). The acceptable daily intake for humans is 50 nanograms per kilogram per day, or 3000 nanograms per day for a 60-kilogram person.[9] The American and Australian governments both believe hormone residues in beef from adult cattle pose no threat to human health.
Not so the American Public Health Association, which is lobbying the US Federal Drug Agency to ban the use of HGPs.[10] It says that while hormones in proper balance play an important role in the human body, hormones originating outside the body can interfere with human hormone function. They are concerned that these hormones, particularly the oestradiol components, have contributed to hormone-related cancers such as breast and cervical cancer and other chronic diseases. Foetuses and children are thought to be more vulnerable to disruptive hormone-like chemicals—or endocrine disruptors—which, the Association believes, may affect their development and increase their risk of cancer and other chronic diseases.
To date there has been no overt lobbying in Australia by high-profile health professional advocacy groups to ban the use of HGPs. Australia’s Therapeutic Goods Administration reviewed the safety of HGP use in cattle in 2003 and found there was no new evidence to suggest they were unsafe.[11]But somebody is doing some lobbying somewhere. We are currently seeing a voluntary scaling back of the use of HGPs in Australian beef grown for the domestic market. Coles supermarket says it no longer sells HGP-treated beef.[12] This follows market research that showed its customers did not want to buy hormone-treated meat. Farmers sending cattle to feedlots supplying Coles are no longer permitted to use HGPs. While there may be no conclusive scientific evidence to convince the regulator, this case shows the consumer does have influence.
Hormonal growth promotants are also widely used in the commercial pig industry in Australia. The hormonal growth promotant, porcine somatotropin (pST) sold as Reporcin®, is injected to produce fast growth and a lean carcass in pigs. It is often used in conjunction with non-hormonal growth promotants such as the betaagonist ractopamine, sold as Paylean®. This is a feed ingredient that is registered as a growth promotant for use in piggeries.[13][14] Other hormones are also used to regulate breeding cycles in sows.
If the truth be known, consumers are more likely to have their food adversely affected by pesticides used to treat meat animals, rather than by HGPs. Beef cattle, sheep, pigs and poultry are routinely dipped, sprayed and injected with toxic chemicals to control intestinal worms, lice, ticks and flies which spread disease, cause discomfort, weight loss, skin irritation, hair loss, blindness and even death in the animal. It is a common practice, and farmers say an essential tool, to produce meat that is fit for human consumption. It also helps the cattle grow more quickly without discomfort. Many of these products are toxic to humans if used in large amounts. Likewise meat animals can ingest chemicals by grazing on crops or pastures sprayed with pesticides or herbicides. Farmers are required to withhold treated meat animals from slaughter for a certain period after the use of these products to allow the animals to work the chemical out of its system. Again, the NRS polices this and it is rare for high levels of chemicals to show up in test samples in Australian meat.
Antibiotics have been used in the poultry, pig, beef, sheep meat and dairy industries for 70 years. They are used to treat sick animals, to prevent infection in healthy animals and as a growth promotant. Freerange livestock are not routinely treated with antibiotics in Australia unless they are sick or injured. Antibiotics are more likely to be used in intensive or factory farming operations where animals are kept in close confines with one another and disease is easily spread. Nearly all of the 470 million meat chickens eaten in Australia each year are grown in large industrial chicken sheds in New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia and Queensland. Each shed houses up to 40,000 birds. If this were a school, all parents know that every kid would be sure to have a runny nose.
While antibiotics are obviously used to individually treat sick animals, they can also be used as a prophylactic—to prevent disease. In intensive animal production, when necessary, they are fed to the whole population through water or feed. Antibiotics are administered to pigs to treat respiratory infections among other illnesses. In some herds, penicillin is routinely administered to sows at farrowing time to prevent mastitis.[15] Dairy farmers also use antibiotics to treat mastitis in cows. Dairy processors have strict milk-screening programs that test individual farm milk collections for a cocktail of antibiotic residue, other chemicals and germs. Feedlot cattle are also treated with antibiotics to control common diseases such as bovine respiratory disease.
The ACMF says the development of vaccines to prevent disease in chickens has reduced the need for routine antibiotic use in birds. Beef, pork and sheep farmers also routinely vaccinate calves, piglets and lambs to prevent common diseases and avoid the need for antibiotics. The farmer will avoid antibiotic treatment where possible because it is expensive and requires the animals and birds to be withheld from slaughter for various time periods. Routine testing by the NRS program has further discouraged indiscriminate antibiotic use across all meat and egg industries.
Animal liberationists in Australia claim that antibiotic use is widespread in the cattle feedlot industry and is used to achieve abnormally high growth rates in cattle.[16][17] Cows are designed to eat grass but grain fattens them more quickly. Grain can and does make cattle sick. Aggressive grain-feeding programs can cause bloat and acidosis, which leads to ulceration and damage to the stomach. In cattle, this can lead to poor nutrient absorption and liver abscesses, among other illnesses. Low doses of rumen modifiers, a special class of antibiotics, are mixed with stockfeed and fed to cattle over a long period of time to kill off harmful gut bacteria, aid nutrient absorption and treat liver abscesses.[18] There are dozens of antibiotics registered for this type of use in Australia and included in commercially available stockfeed mixes. The Australian Lot Feeders’ Association (ALFA) says antibiotics are not put in cattle grain rations to prevent infection.[19] This may be so, but ALFA avoids mention of antibiotics being used as growth promotants.
Some antibiotics are used in both human and animal medicine. Many in the scientific community are concerned that the overuse of antibiotics in intensive farming is resulting in bacterial resistance to the drugs used for humans. An Australian government report into antibiotic use in both the human health system and the intensive animal industry in 1999 found that antibiotic resistance had developed as their use became more widespread. The Joint Expert Technical Advisory Committee on Antibiotic Resistance Report (JETACAR) recommended limiting the use of some antibiotics in Australia’s intensive chicken, pig and beef industries and developing alternative non-antibiotic methods to increase productivity.[20] Looking at the long list of APVMA-approved antibiotic feed supplements available for use in feedlots, piggeries and broiler sheds today—including some of those recommended for review in 1999—it is hard to believe the widespread use of antibiotics has decreased at all.[21]
How much of the hormones, antibiotics or pesticides used to produce our meat actually gets into the food we eat? The latest NRS 2008–09 showed that Australian-produced meat tested under the program was 99.86 per cent clear of chemical residue above accepted limits. No meat was found to contain traces of HGPs.[22] Eggs tested under the program were 98.26 per cent clear of chemical residue above accepted limits. A few eggs showed small traces of antibiotics.
Despite these ‘reassuring’ test results, it is a big leap of faith to trust our industrialised food production system from which we are so distanced. The Australian Consumers’ Association says that consumers today feel food supply is out of their control.[23] Once upon a time we knew what we were eating because it grew in the backyard or we bought it from the local greengrocer or butcher. However, nowadays when we have such little control over our food production, we must trust what we are told. We must trust that there is such a thing as a safe level of pesticides in our food; that our food is carefully monitored; that the science is right; that farmers always follow the instructions and apply chemicals appropriately; that the testing program detects food with unacceptable levels of pesticides; that vested interests do not influence government regulators to approve unsafe chemicals. Some take the leap. The food is cheap and available and that’s all that matters.
But many Australian consumers, due to real or perceived concerns, have turned to the organic food alternative. While the scientific evidence is inconsistent as to whether organic food is safer and healthier, people’s perception is their reality. They like the idea of eating clean, natural food produced without chemicals—and that’s what organic offers.
The organic system of farming works with nature from the soil up. Organic farming is a system where an understanding of biological processes informs a farmer’s management system. Close observation, increased labour input and plenty of time take the place of chemical use; it’s a system that aims to coexist with nature, not dominate.
Unfortunately, the reality in Australia is that most mainstream farms are not set up to grow food organically—neither physically, financially nor philosophically. Farmers are locked in to the industrial production cycle. Time is of the essence. Even for free-range or pasture-fed animals, there is no time for them to develop natural immunity to disease and parasites. The farmer opts to vaccinate, drench and medicate—just in case. Meat animals will often be fed on crops grown with chemical sprays and synthetic fertilisers. The farmer can’t afford either the time or the money to take the paddock out of the conventional cropping system and put it back to legume pasture for a period in order to build up organic soil matter, improve fertility, and manage weeds and pests naturally. Conventional farmers appear stuck in a cycle of fighting nature rather than working with her, perhaps the result of Australia’s tough physical environment. They need a quick fix, and science and technology has provided this through hormones, pesticides and antibiotics.
But it is not all doom and gloom for chemical-free food production in Australia. In recent times there has been a move away from conventional farming methods, particularly by smaller farmers. Is the worm turning, so to speak? There are increasing numbers of farmers successfully producing organic food, and given the right market messages, more will come on board. The challenges that conventional farmers face, such as pest resistance to chemicals, high costs of fertiliser and pesticides, and changes in consumer demand, if nothing else, will lead them in this direction.
The OBE Beef group operating in the Channel Country of western Queensland is an example of successful organic beef and lamb production on a large scale.[24] This group of 32 farming families manage 16 million acres of certified organic Channel Country. They grow thousands of head of organic beef and lamb in a pristine environment, remote from disease and naturally free of parasites. They run a close-knit marketing co-operative and since starting up in 1995 have built up good networks to supply product throughout Australia and overseas. Demonstrating that ‘organic’ has a place in the mainstream market, the Hungry Jack’s fast-food chain in Australia announced in October 2011 that OBE Beef would supply organic beef to make its new Country Burger.
Smaller scale beef producers have also chosen to go organic. This suits many niche export markets, including the European Union which banned the importation of HGP-treated beef in 1988. There is a demand for organic meat in Australia too. A growing number of organic chicken and egg growers throughout the country supply large domestic markets. Many small-scale organic fruit and vegetable growers are now also supplying smaller alternative markets. Change is in the wind.