Doctors play down fear of resistance to drugs in meat lovers

A report by the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) on the rampant unregulated use of antibiotics in the poultry industry possibly being a contributing factor to Indians developing a resistance against antibiotics must have raised alarm bells for meat lovers. But, doctors say it's too early to press the panic button.

Reacting to the latest study on antibiotics, Dr Khusrav Bajan, intensivist, PD Hinduja Hospital, said, "This is not a new study. It is a known fact that chicken are being given antibiotics, specially ciprofloxacin, to keep them healthier and fatter. There is, however, no need to panic... this study should be taken as a lesson, the practice needs to be changed."

In the study, 70 samples of chicken in Delhi and NCR were tested to detect presence of six antibiotics widely used in poultry — oxytetracycline, chlortetracycline and doxycycline, enrofloxacin, ciprofloxacin and neomycin, an aminoglycoside. Residues of nearly five of these were found in the samples.

Of the 40% samples found containing antibiotic residues, 22.9% contained residues of only one antibiotic, while the remaining had residues of more than one antibiotic. Researchers pointed out that antibiotics were frequently pumped into chicken during its life cycle of 35-42 days.

Dr Abhay Chowdhary, director, Haffkine Institute, Parel said, "A person eating a chicken that's being fed with antibiotics can't develop resistance to the drug. It is, however, true that antibiotics are mixed with bird feed and cattle feed and the practice should be stopped as this leads to the bacteria developing resistance to the drug."