Pyrrhic progress : the history of antibiotics in Anglo-American food production

Author(s)

    • Kirchhelle, Claas

Bibliographic Information

Pyrrhic progress : the history of antibiotics in Anglo-American food production

Claas Kirchhelle

（Critical issues in health and medicine）

Rutgers University Press, c2020

  • : pbk

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Includes bibliographical references (p. 381-410) and index

Description and Table of Contents

Description

Winner of the 2021 Joan Thirsk Memorial Prize from the British Agricultural History Society 2020 Choice Outstanding Academic Title Winner of the 2020 Turriano Prize from ICOHTEC Short-listed and highly commended for the Antibiotic Guardian Award from Public Health England Long-listed for the Michel Deon Prize from the Royal Irish Academy Pyrrhic Progress analyses over half a century of antibiotic use, regulation, and resistance in US and British food production. Mass-introduced after 1945, antibiotics helped revolutionize post-war agriculture. Food producers used antibiotics to prevent and treat disease, protect plants, preserve food, and promote animals' growth. Many soon became dependent on routine antibiotic use to sustain and increase production. The resulting growth of antibiotic infrastructures came at a price. Critics blamed antibiotics for leaving dangerous residues in food, enabling bad animal welfare, and selecting for antimicrobial resistance (AMR) in bacteria, which could no longer be treated with antibiotics. Pyrrhic Progress reconstructs the complicated negotiations that accompanied this process of risk prioritization between consumers, farmers, and regulators on both sides of the Atlantic. Unsurprisingly, solutions differed: while Europeans implemented precautionary antibiotic restrictions to curb AMR, consumer concerns and cost-benefit assessments made US regulators focus on curbing drug residues in food. The result was a growing divergence of antibiotic stewardship and a rise of AMR. Kirchhelle's comprehensive analysis of evolving non-human antibiotic use and the historical complexities of antibiotic stewardship provides important insights for current debates on the global burden of AMR. This Open Access ebook is available under a CC-BY-NC-ND license, and is supported by a generous grant from Wellcome Trust.

Table of Contents

List of Abbreviations 1. The Sound of Coughing Pigs Part I. USA: From Industrialized Agriculture to Manufactured Hazards, 1949-1967 2. Picking One's Poisons: Antibiotics and the Public 3. Chemical Cornucopia: Antibiotics on the Farm 4. Toxic Priorities: ANtibiotics and the FDA Part II. Britain: From Rationing to Gluttony, 1945-1969 5. Fusing Concerns: Antibiotics and the British Public 6. Bigger, Better, Faster: Antibiotics and British Farming 7. Typing Resistence: Antibiotic Regulation in Britain Part III. USA: The Problem of Plenty, 1967-2013 8. Marketplace Environmentalism: Antibiotics, Public Concerns, and Consumer Solutions 9. Light-Green Reform: Antibiotic Change on American Farms 10. Statutory Defeat: Voluntarism and the Limits of FDA Power Part IV Britain: From Gluttony to Fear, 1970-2018 11. Between Swann Patriotism and BSE: Antibiotics in the Public Sphere 12. Persistent Infrastructures: Antibiotic Reform and British Farming 13. Swann Song: British Antibiotic Policy After 1969 Conclusion Acknowledgments Notes Bibliography Index

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