Antimicrobial Resistance: Implications for the Food System Microorganisms have an inherent ability to evolve—to mutate and adapt to environmental stressors─allowing them to survive otherwise lethal conditions.

IFT convened a panel of internationally renowned experts to address the concern that the use of antimicrobials in food production, manufacturing, and elsewhere may lead to the emergence of foodborne pathogens that are resistant to antimicrobials, thus compromising the ability to subsequently control them, whether in production agriculture, food processing, or human medicine.

August 2, 2006

ABSTRACT

The safety of food worldwide remains challenged by the potential for emergence of new pathogens and re-emergence of known pathogens. Microorganisms have an inherent ability to evolve–to mutate and adapt to environmental stressors–allowing them to survive otherwise lethal conditions. The Institute of Food Technologists (IFT),1 the 22000-member nonprofit scientific and educational society, convened a panel of internationally renowned experts to address the concern that the use of antimicrobials in food production, manufacturing, and elsewhere may lead to the emergence of foodborne pathogens that are resistant to antimicrobials, thus compromising the ability to subsequently control them, whether in production agriculture, food processing, or human medicine. The outcome of the panel's deliberations is presented in this Expert Report. IFT's objective for this Expert Report is to increase the understanding–among IFT members, senior policy officials, and other interested groups–of the state of the science on the public health impact of the use of antimicrobials in the food system, and development and control of antimicrobial resistance. This report is the fourth Expert Report produced by IFT.

DIGITAL OBJECT IDENTIFIER (DOI) 10.1111/j.1541-4337.2006.00004.x

Introduction

The availability of antibiotics to treat infectious diseases has radically improved human and animal well being, and to a minor degree, plant health. Paradoxically, this very success threatens the future utility of antibiotics. The discovery of penicillin in 1940 ushered in the era of "modern medicine." Numerous antimicrobials, including most structural classes of antibiotics were discovered during 1920 to 1970. Chemical modification of many of these compounds led to new entities with superior activities. Because of the great success in antibiotic discovery, by the late 1970s, many proclaimed that the war on infectious diseases had been won, leading ultimately to de-emphasis of antibiotic discovery during the 1980s and a decline in the 1990s. At the same time, however, widespread antibiotic resistance was emerging and resulting in impaired treatment of human diseases (Neu 1992). As the genomes of bacteria, especially pathogens, have become increasingly available, the prospect of using them to identify new targets for antibiotic discovery has renewed interest in such investigations between the public sector and large pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies. Many of the larger companies and much of the public sector, however, have redirected research efforts toward noninfectious disease targets.

All uses of antibiotics in human medicine and animal husbandry create selective pressure that favors emergence of antibiotic resistance among microorganisms, which could undermine the effectiveness of the antibiotics and potentially give rise to a "postantibiotic" era. The selection for antibiotic-resistant bacteria in agricultural production environments and the subsequent impact on animal and human health has become a major concern and is the subject of many reports (Table 1). This document focuses on the use of antimicrobial agents to control bacteria in the food system; other microorganisms are considered as well, however. This document builds upon the IFT Scientific Status Summary "Resistance and Adaptation to Food Antimicrobials, Sanitizers, and Other Process Controls" (IFT 2002a), to inform readers about the various types of antimicrobial agents, including antibiotics, food antimicrobial agents, and sanitizers that are used at various stages of the food system, and the mechanisms that microorganisms, particularly foodborne pathogens, have for surviving the stress of exposure to these substances in their environments. Trends in antimicrobial resistance, and the resultant human health, economic, and clinically relevant environmental impacts are also addressed.

Table 1–Reports of antimicrobial use, resistance, and human health impact