Taking antibiotics at the right time and in the right dosage might cure illnesses, but overexposure could also be dangerous.

Various studies have suggested that antibiotic overuse in humans leads to drug resistance, as viruses and bacteria develop the ability to defeat the drugs designated to kill them. This is dangerous because it puts people at risk of diseases that could previously be cured.

The World Health Organization has reported that infections such as pneumonia and salmonellosis are becoming harder to treat as the antibiotics designated to treat them have become less effective. Its latest study even found 500,000 antibiotic resistance cases across 22 countries. And this is not because people routinely directly consume the antibiotics, but because they unwittingly consume them through food that contains antibiotics, including chickens and eggs.  

“The most commonly reported resistant bacteria were Escherichia coli, Klebsiella pneumoniae, Staphylococcus aureus, Streotococcus pneumoniae and Salmonella spp,” said the WHO.

Trying to overcome the health concerns, a layer farmer from Lampung named Kusno Waluyo then started to self-manufacture non-antibiotic feed for thousands of his poultry, hoping that people consuming the birds’ eggs would not ingest antibiotics that the poultry have ingested. Antibiotic use is common in chicken farms since it can fatten the livestock. 

“I used to provide my livestock with feed containing antibiotics until they became resistance to some infections. This could also occur in humans,” he said recently at his farm Sekuntum Herbal in Purbolinggo, East Lampung. Kusno was also eager to produce eggs that were safe to be consumed by people with allergies. 

“In my neighborhood, there was a family allergic to eating eggs, and I wanted to address the issue. Thank God. I finally did it,” he said.

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