The FDA stated that giving animals antibiotics to increase food production should be stopped because is a threat to human health. In the hope that the food industry will make voluntary changes the FDA has made the decision to stand on the sidelines for the time being even though they have the power to ban the practice.
Like humans, animals sometimes need antibiotics to fight or prevent specific infections. Food producers however give antibiotics to animals regularly because it makes them gain more weight from the foods that they eat faster than without the additives.
“We are seeing the emergence of multidrug-resistant pathogens,” FDA Deputy Commissioner Joshua Sharfstein, MD, said at a news conference. The FDA believes that the overall weight of evidence supports the conclusion that using medically important antimicrobial drugs for production purposes is not appropriate.” Sharfstein said it’s a public health issue when antibiotics important for human health are given to animals on a massive scale. Such use encourages the growth of drug-resistant bacteria that can cause hard-to-treat human disease. Sharfstein also said antibiotics should be used only to protect the health of an animal and not to help it grow or improve the way it digests its feed. “This is an urgent public health issue,” Sharfstein said during a conference call with reporters. “To preserve the effectiveness [of antibiotics], we simply must use them as judiciously as possible.”
It is rare indeed where I find myself in a position to defend the FDA however they have tried to limit the use of antibiotics in agriculture since 1977, but its efforts have repeatedly collapsed in the face of opposition from the drug industry and farm lobby. But mounting evidence of a global crisis of antibiotic-resistant bacteria has propelled the government to act, said Brad Spellberg, an infectious-diseases specialist and the author of “Rising Plague,” a book about antibiotic resistance.
“The writing is on the wall,” said Spellberg, who teaches at the David Geffen School of Medicine at the University of California, Los Angeles. “We’re in an era where antibiotic resistance is out of control, and we’re running out of drugs and new drugs are not being developed. We can’t continue along the path we’re on.”
The European Union banned the feeding of antibiotics and related drugs to livestock for growth promotion in 2006.
U.S. farmers routinely give antibiotics to food-producing animals to treat illnesses, prevent infection and encourage growth. The drugs are often added to drinking water and feed. The Union of Concerned Scientists estimates that 70 percent of antibiotics and related drugs used in the United States are given to animals. Many of the same classes of drugs fed to animals are deemed “critically” important in human medicine by the FDA, including penicillin, tetracyclines and sulfonamides. In recent years, public health experts say there has been an alarming increase in the number of bacteria that have grown resistant to antibiotics, leading to severe, untreatable illnesses in humans.
Naturally the farming industry, food producers and the manufacturers of the drugs being used are stating that there is not enough evidence for the FDA to propose an alternative course of action and that they need more evidence before it dictates changes to long-standing practices of administering antibiotics to animals.
“Show us the science that use of antibiotics in animal production is causing this antibiotic resistance,” said Dave Warner of the pork council. “How do we know [the problem] is not on the human side? Where is the science for you to go forward on this?”
Conversely public health groups, however, said the agency’s actions were too tentative.
“The policy is good, but you can’t have a policy unless you have a mechanism to implement,” said Steve Roach of Keep Antibiotics Working, a coalition of health and environmental groups. “Their hope is the industry is voluntarily going to go along. We don’t believe people are going to act against their own economic interest because FDA asks them politely to do it.”
Rep. Louise M. Slaughter (D-N.Y.), who has filed legislation to limit the use of antibiotics in agriculture, said FDA officials “have not gone far enough or moved fast enough.” “Scientists and public health experts have known for many years that these drugs were being overused by farmers,” she said.
In the mean time the consumer once again finds themselves caught in the middle of this game of Russian Roulette.
Just another example why buying Organic is the best option for the health minded consumer.
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