Global Health Threat Seen in Overuse of Antibiotics on Chinese Pig Farms

By DIDI KIRSTEN TATLOW February 19, 2013

中国养猪场抗生素过量威胁全球

DIDI KIRSTEN TATLOW 报道 2013年02月19日

BEIJING - As Europe continues to recoil at the "horseburger" scandal, focusing minds on the risks in long food-production chains, a new study has found that high use of antibiotics in Chinese pig farms is producing antibiotic-resistant genes that pose "a potential worldwide human health risk."
北京——正当欧洲因继续受“马肉汉堡”丑闻影响而开始关注食品生产的长链之际，一项新研究发现，中国养猪场大量使用抗生素导致抗生素耐药基因的出现，给“全世界人类带来潜在健康危险”。
The "unchecked" use of antibiotics in Chinese farms poses risks that "may spread worldwide through manure and fertilizer run-off," according to an article in The Conversation, a journal funded by more than a dozen Australian universities.
由十几所澳大利亚大学联合创办的《对话》(The Conversation)杂志发表文章称，中国养猪场中“不受限制”地使用抗生素所带来的危险，“可能会通过粪肥和化肥残留物向全世界扩散”。
The article cited a study by eight scientists from China and the United States published in the journal PNAS, or the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science of the United States of America.
这篇文章引用了八名中国和美国科学家在《美国国家科学院院刊》(Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences)上发表的一项研究报告。
The Chinese researchers, from the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and their colleagues from Michigan State University analyzed manure from three commercial pig farms in China. They compared the results to manure from pigs never fed antibiotics and soil from "a pristine forest," also in China, the article said.
来自中国科学院的中国科学家以及他们在密歇根州立大学(Michigan State University)的同事一起分析了三家中国商业养猪场中的粪肥。作者在文章中说，他们将这些粪肥与来自中国的那些没有喂过抗生素的猪粪肥、以及与来 自 “未受污染森林”里的土壤，进行了比较。
The result: They found 149 "unique" antibiotic-resistant genes in the commercial farm manure, three times more than in the control samples.
结果是：他们在商业养猪场的猪粪肥里发现了149种“独特”的抗生素耐药基因，数量是对照样本中含量的三倍。
In the language of science: "Antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs) are emerging contaminants posing a potential worldwide human health risk," the researchers wrote in an abstract.
用科学语言来说：“抗生素耐药基因（antibiotic resistance genes, 简称ARGs）是一种新兴的污染物，给全球人类健康带来潜在危险，”科学家在摘要中写道。
"Intensive animal husbandry is believed to be a major contributor to the increased environmental burden of ARGs. Despite the volume of antibiotics used in China, little information is available regarding the corresponding ARGs associated with animal farms," they wrote.
他们写道，“密集式饲养动物被认为是造成ARGs这种不断增加的环境负担的主要因素。虽然中国大量使用抗生素，但是极少有人关注与养殖场有关的ARGs情况。
How does it go global? The genes can be spread via microbes in manure, compost or the soil, as these enter rivers, leach into underground water, are transported by the wind or human travel, or in agricultural products such as gardening compost, they said.
这个危险如何成为全球性的呢？他们称，这些基因可以随着粪肥、堆肥或土壤中的微生物进入河流、渗入地下水，被风或旅行者携带走，或者是混在像花园堆肥这种农产品中被扩散。
It was unclear from the study if the resistance had created superbugs, germs that are resistant to a combination of antibiotics, a co-author, Timothy Johnson, said, according to The Conversation.
根据《对话》发表的文章，该研究报告的作者之一蒂莫西·约翰逊(Timothy Johnson)表示，还不清楚这种耐药性是否已经产生了对多种抗生素的组合具有耐药性的超级细菌。
China is the world's biggest producer and consumer of antibiotics in the world, with at least 46 percent of antibiotics being used in livestock, The Conversation said.
《对话》发表的文章称，中国是世界上最大的抗生素制造国和消费国，至少有46%的抗生素被用在牲畜身上。
Professor Matthew Cooper of the University of Queensland's Institute for Molecular Bioscience told The Conversation that the paper had quantified this type of resistance evolution in Chinese pigs for the first time.
昆士兰大学分子生物科学研究所(University of Queensland's Institute for Molecular Bioscience)的马修·库珀(Matthew Cooper)教授告诉《对话》杂志，这项研究报告首次对中国养猪场中的这种耐药性演化情况进行了定量分析。
Professor Cooper said that more transparent reporting measures for antibiotics use were needed in both China and India. The European Union has banned the use of antibiotics as growth promoters, and the United States and Australia have been banning more classes of antibiotics, but a global framework is needed, he said.
库珀表示，需要在中国和印度建立更透明的抗生素使用情况报告措施。欧盟(European Union)已经禁止用抗生素来促进生长，美国和澳大利亚也正在禁止更多种类的抗生素，但还需要一个全球框架，他说。
"Animals get transported between countries, as do people. Infectious disease is no longer a national issue, it's a global issue," Professor Cooper said.
库珀说，“动物在国与国之间流动，这和人一样。传染病已经不是一个国家的问题，而是一个全球问题。”

翻译：张亮亮

http://cn.nytimes.com/article/china/2013/02/19/c19foodsafety/dual/?pagemode=print