"Year after year, legislation intended to preserve the effectiveness of available antibiotics by limiting their use in livestock is shot down. The latest bills introduced in both houses of Congress have been stalled for close to a year.
Banning the use of antibiotics in perfectly healthy animals has always been the right thing to do for the health of the American public. Overuse of antibiotics, whether in animals or humans, renders them less effective because it leads to the development of resistant bacteria. Not so long ago, humans were the ones ingesting too many of these wonder drugs, which were meant to fight infection, not acne or the sniffles. More recently, the overuse of antibiotics has been a staple of livestock operations, which feed low doses to animals to prevent disease from sweeping through overcrowded pens and as a growth enhancer. About 13% of the antibiotics given to farm animals are for growth, not medical treatment.
The industry claims the use of antibiotics keeps expenses down, but its calculations don't include the rising cost to the U.S. of antibiotic-resistant infections, in both health and actual dollars. Exotic antibiotics for resistant infections are far more expensive than the run-of-the-mill medications.
According to a report by the Associated Press, federal studies routinely discover drug-resistant bacteria in meat sold in the nation's supermarkets. The report cites the widespread agricultural use, starting in the early 1990s, of a family of antibiotics that includes Cipro. Several years later, Cipro stopped working 80% of the time on deadly human infections it previously had cured.
In its quest for ever-cheaper food, the United States has fallen behind the developed world when it comes to antibiotic use. Six years ago, the World Health Organization reported that the evidence clearly linked resistant, sometimes killer, bacteria to "nonhuman usage of antimicrobials." The European Union has banned the use of antibiotics in livestock except to treat illness.
Last summer, Joshua Sharfstein, deputy commissioner of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, told Congress that the practice of administering antibiotics to healthy farm animals had to stop. And the U.S. Department of Agriculture has thrown cold water on the cost argument, reporting that, except in the case of very young pigs, the cost of the antibiotics to the agricultural industry outstripped the financial benefits.
But these agencies' ability to change the outmoded, expensive and harmful farm practice is limited. There's always something urgent, like healthcare, dominating the congressional agenda. It's time to realize that protecting the usefulness of antibiotics is a pressing health matter as well.
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.
More infoCopyright(c) 1996-2012 The Pew Charitable Trusts. All Rights Reserved.
[+] Feedback PHG.PRODUCTION.1.20130703.1022 (PEWSUWVMWAPP01)
