Antibiotics – continued

Animals treated with sub-therapeutic doses of antibiotics gain much more weight than they otherwise would and those extra pounds mean extra profit for producers. The practice, however, has long raised concerns about serious health risks and human drug resistance.

In the 1970s, the FDA asked producers to show that their use of penicillin and tetracycline caused no harm to humans. When they couldn’t, the agency banned the use of the drugs in animals. But under pressure from the drug and animal industries, Congress stepped in and ordered the FDA not to implement the ban.

In 1999, and again in 2005, petitions were filed by the Center for Science in the Public Interest, Environmental Defense, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Public Health Association, Food Animal Concerns Trust (FACT), and the Union of Concerned Scientists. Both petitions had asked the agency to withdrawal its approval of certain antimicrobial drugs that are considered important for human medicine.In June 2010, the FDA finally admitted that antibiotics in meat pose a “serious public health threat,” but despite this admission, the agency denied both petitions. Instead, the agency asked producers to voluntarily use the drugs “judiciously” with the oversight of a veterinarian.In 2011, the agency asked pharmaceutical companies to voluntarily reduce sales of antibiotics for use in food animals. The industry response? Sales of the two most commonly used antibiotics in livestock and poultry increased for the second consecutive year.

For a vast number of scientists, health experts, and public interest groups, saying “pretty please” to livestock producers and drug companies is just not enough. Legislation is now in Congress that would address this problem and hundreds of groups, including the American Medical Association, American Academy of Pediatricians, Infectious Diseases Society of America, the American Nurses Association and the World Health Organization, are supporting it.The Preservation of Antibiotics for Medical Treatment Act (PAMTA, H.R. 965, S. 1211) would withdraw the routine use of seven classes of antibiotics vitally important to human health from food animal production unless the animals are sick or unless drug companies can prove that their use does not harm human health.

Putting an end to the involuntary dosing of meat-eating Americans with antibiotics may well be the most critical battle in the Great American Food Fight. This is an avoidable national health crisis, but the FDA refuses to act.