''Federal legislation was re-introduced on Tuesday to curb the use by industrial livestock farms of massive amounts of antibiotics important in human medicine.
'It's not that they're sick,' Rep. Louise Slaughter, D-New York, said of the animals being fed antibiotics in concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs). "It's to compensate for unsanitary conditions, crowded conditions, and to promote weight gain."
The majority of antibiotics sold in the United States are given to CAFO animals, Slaughter said during a teleconference on the Preservation of Antibiotics for Medical Treatment Act.
The concern of the American Medical Association and three hundred other organizations that support the legislation, according to Slaughter, is that feeding antibiotics to animals contributes to a dramatic rise in antibiotic-resistant infections in people.
Shelley A. Hearne, managing director of the Pew Charitable Trusts' health and human services program, said physicians warn patients against taking antibiotics if they're not sick, "but this is actually the practice going on in farms."
Steve Ells, founder of Chipotle Mexican Grill, which serves antibiotic-free pork raised in pastures or deeply bedded pens, said antibiotics should be used only for sick people and sick animals.
Non-therapeutic use of antibiotics should not be viewed as 'a prerequisite for life on the farm' but as "a threat to life itself," Ells said.
The practice has been banned by the European Union.
U.S. Rep. Mike Pence's position was unavailable on Tuesday. 'The congressman will be sure to take a look at Rep. Slaughter's legislation once it is formally introduced and brought before the House in the 111th Congress,' spokesman Daniel Son said.
The Star Press interviewed veterinarian Jeff Harker, then president of the Indiana Pork Producers Association, about antibiotics at the Midwest Pork Conference in September.
'In most cases, the antibiotics break down into inert forms after they go through the digestive systems of the pig and the manure storage process and are discharged onto the field,' Harker said. 'They have mutated or changed into inert form.'
'The soil contains many bacteria. There is a slight concern there about possibly some antibiotics reaching the field and creating a bacteria that might be resistant, that might develop resistance to it, but it's such a minimal chance of risk that we usually don't even get concerned about it.'
He asked: 'Would you rather have a one-in-a-million possibility of infection with antibiotic resistant bacteria, or do you want diarrhea three days a year from a food borne illness because you ate meat from an animal that wasn't fed antibiotics?'
Harker said that sub-therapeutic antibiotics were banned in Denmark 10 years ago.
'They found when they banned prevention antibiotics, the level of treatment antibiotics went through the roof,' he said. 'And they found just as many resistant bacteria when they banned sub-therapeutic antibiotics. So it's not as simple as we think.''
Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) today introduced the Preventing Antibiotic Resistance Act, a bipartisan bill that would eliminate certain antibiotic-related practices that contribute to the rise of drug-resistant bacteria and endanger human health. The legislation is co-sponsored by Senators Susan Collins (R-ME), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), Jack Reed (D-RI), Barbara Boxer (D-CA) and Maria Cantwell (D-WA).
More infoThis bibliography lists the latest published scientific and economic literature concerning the contribution of routine antibiotic use in food animals to the growing public health crisis of human antibiotic resistance. Research on how antibiotic use in food animal production contributes to the growing health crisis of antibiotic resistance dates back more than 30 years.
More infoPew Charitable Trusts today applauded Senators Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), and Susan Collins (R-ME), for introducing the Antimicrobial Data Collection Act, which would require the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, or FDA, to report more information on the annual sales of antibiotics used among industrial farm animals. The bipartisan bill would also give the agency a deadline to finalize policies proposed last year to eliminate the use of antibiotics for growth promotion purposes in meat production.
More info"As a nation, we need to exercise greater care with our use of antibiotics, in both humans and animals, so that these medications remain effective in treating serious bacterial infections."
More infoSuperChefs Against Superbugs, an initiative of the Pew Campaign on Human Health and Industrial Farming, is a movement of chefs nationwide who have expressed their support of ending the misuse and overuse of antibiotics in food animal production. As a result, the SuperChefs are urging the Food and Drug Administration to strengthen its antibiotic policies.
More infoSuperChefs Against Superbugs, an initiative of the Pew Campaign on Human Health and Industrial Farming, is a movement of chefs who want to stop the overuse of antibiotics in food animal production. On April 23, the following seven chefs visited Capitol Hill to explain why they serve meat and poultry raised without antibiotics.
More infoIt used to be easy to treat healthy children with common bacterial infections; a regimen of antibiotic pills could usually wipe out the disease. Today, patients might need to go home on intravenous antibiotics because oral therapies will no longer work. Antibiotic resistance is to blame.
More infoA past bout of salmonella led Maine resident Danielle Wadsworth to travel to Washington, D.C. this week to argue for stronger regulations to curtail the use of antibiotics in livestock farming. She took part Wednesday in "Supermoms Against Superbugs," an initiative of the Pew Campaign on Human Health and Industrial Farming.
More infoDr. Cecilia Di Pentima is in Washington, D.C., for “Supermoms against Superbugs” to push for laws to curtail the use of antibiotics in livestock farming — one of many fronts in the battle to preserve the effectiveness of the medicines. Family physicians in the South, including Tennessee, have also been identified as inadvertent purveyors of drug-resistant bacteria by prescribing too many antibiotics.
More infoEach year, tens of thousands of Americans die and hundreds of thousands are hospitalized because of bacterial infections resistant to antibiotics. Antibiotic overuse on industrial farms is a big part of the problem. The largest U.S. meat and poultry producers feed antibiotics to healthy animals over much of their lives to make them grow faster and to compensate for the overcrowded and unsanitary conditions in which they are bred and slaughtered.
More infoOn behalf of the undersigned organizations representing medical, public health, scientific, agricultural, environmental, animal protection, and other organizations, we urge you to include H.R. 820, the Delivering Antimicrobial Transparency in Animals (DATA) Act, as part of the final Animal Drug User Fee Act (ADUFA). This legislation provides a reasonable, common-sense approach to better understanding antibiotic use in agriculture.
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