Their research holds promise to counter bacteria that are
resistant to antibiotics.
Antibiotic-resistant bacteria sicken more than two million
people in the United States kill more than 23,000 every year.
Critics want pork
producers to eliminate sub-therapeutic antibiotic use throughout the production
cycle.
Finding safe and effective alternatives to conventional
antibiotics may give producers viable options in the event the antibiotics are
removed from use, William Oliver, a physiologist at the agency’s Agricultural
Research Service in Clay Center, Neb., said in a news release.
Oliver and his ARS and university colleagues began
investigating lysozyme in 2010.
They found that piglets on lysozyme- or antibiotics-treated
feeds grew approximately 12 percent faster than untreated pigs—even in
uncleaned pens, suggesting that the treatments successfully lessened the impact
of harmful bacteria.
