Veterinary Medical Ethics

Ethical question of the month — August 2014

Videos documenting animal mistreatment on livestock farms receive much attention from the media. Many jurisdictions in the United States have instituted “ag-gag” laws to prevent the making of such videos. Those opposed to the filming of animal mistreatment on farms criticize the person or welfare group that makes the videos by stating that anyone concerned about animal welfare should not stand by and film animal mistreatment but rather immediately intervene to stop the mistreatment. Producers also criticize those making the videos for not being honest about their intentions when they apply to work on a farm. In contrast, journalists report from war zones and natural disaster areas documenting extreme human suffering and are not expected to intervene. These reporters receive awards for documenting human suffering because it is believed that documenting atrocities is important in resolving such problems. These journalists are not condemned if they gain access to sites to report on atrocities under false pretenses. Is it ethical to report on human suffering or should journalists stop reporting on abuse and instead offer assistance to those in need? Should there be a distinction on such reporting depending on whether people or animals are involved?

Responses to the case presented are welcome. Please limit your reply to approximately 50 words and forward along with your name and address to: Ethical Choices, c/o Dr. Tim Blackwell, Veterinary Science, Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs, 6484 Wellington Road 7, Unit 10, Elora, Ontario N0B 1S0; telephone: (519) 846-3413; fax: (519) 846-8178; e-mail: tim.blackwell@ontario.ca

Suggested ethical questions of the month are also welcome! All ethical questions or scenarios in the ethics column are based on actual events, which are changed, including names, locations, species, etc., to protect the confidentiality of the parties involved.

Ethical question of the month — May 2014

Certain antibiotics are banned from use in food animals while others are restricted to specific uses. These restrictions are intended to prevent the development of antibiotic resistance that could be transferred to humans. No restrictions on antibiotic use, however, are applied to companion animals. While over half of Canadians own a dog or cat less than 1% of the public interacts with commercial livestock. Therefore antibiotic use in companion animals may be more likely to transfer antimicrobial resistant bacteria to humans as a result of the frequent and close interactions between humans and their pets. One might assume that no restrictions are placed on the use of antibiotics in companion animals because of the outcry from pet owners should their companion animal suffer because an effective antibiotic was not permitted for their use. Is it morally defensible to ban certain antibiotics in livestock while allowing unrestricted access to these products in companion animals?

An ethicist’s commentary on antibiotic resistance and farm animals versus pets

Having served in Geneva on the World Health Organization (WHO) task force on the prudent use of antibiotics, as well as on the Pew Commission examining the multitude of issues emerging from industrialized agriculture, including antibiotic use in farm animals, I have had a significant degree of experience thinking about the issues of antibiotic resistance, and have written a number of papers on the topic.

One important distinction that must be made concerns the various purposes to which antibiotics are put to use. Antibiotics, of course, are of significant importance for battling infectious disease, which might well be the number one cause of death in humans were it not for antibiotics, and which was indeed the case before Fleming discovered penicillin. In the 1940s, it was discovered that feeding low-levels of antibiotics to farm animals led to their gaining additional weight, thereby increasing the efficiency of the production of meat. While no one is absolutely certain of how this works, there are probably multiple mechanisms involved. One way is probably the destruction of subclinical levels of pathogens, whose presence utilizes animal resources to fight disease; these resources can then be mobilized for growth. Given that confinement systems are largely unclean, pathogenic environments, low-level antibiotic use of necessity creates a healthier living environment for the animals. It has been estimated that fully half of the antibiotics produced in North America are utilized in food animal production.

In essence, then, a great deal of antibiotic use is aimed at increasing the efficiency of food animal production. As early as the 1940s, it was recognized that such use would inevitably drive microbial resistance as antibiotics killed off susceptible pathogens. Society has come to recognize that more efficient meat production is not a reasonable trade-off for risking resistant infections, and thus it is prudent to constrain such use, a position in fact adopted by our WHO committee. And in fact, some European factions objected to using antibiotics even to treat sick animals! Our committee, however, recognized that we have a moral obligation to treat illness in the animals we raise for human use, and therefore did not suggest the elimination of therapeutic uses in farm animals which are sick. Generally too cutting edge human antibiotics are not required for treating farm animals, though they are sometimes used to blunt the effects of highly pathogenic conditions.

The Pew Commission adopted a similar stance, focusing our criticisms not on the use of antibiotics for treating sick animals, but rather on growth promotional uses, though the influence of the agricultural and pharmaceutical lobbies is so powerful that the United States government has failed to act on any of our recommendations to curtail such uses.

The pet industry represents a completely different situation, very much analogous to human uses of antibiotics. Antibiotics are, of course, never used to promote growth in companion animals, but only to treat them when they suffer from pathogens susceptible to antibiotics. It is almost certainly the case that, as in human medicine, too much antibiotics are prescribed, even for viral diseases, where they are totally ineffectual. And, as a society, we would do well to monitor even therapeutic uses of antibiotics to avoid contributing to the evolution of resistance. But it is their use in the production of meat which is most problematic from the perspective of public health, and such use is not societally necessary. Treating sick animals, be they food animals or companion animals, represents a strong and unavoidable moral obligation. Using them to increase production is a luxury we can no longer afford. Furthermore, we can undoubtedly curtail sickness in farm animals by paying more attention to achieving cleanliness in the facilities in which we raise animals, a fact that was dramatically evidenced in Sweden when the Swedish public limited antibiotic use in farm animals by a referendum.