FDA Says 29 Million Pounds of Antibiotics Used in Food Animals Last Year

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http://www.alternet.org/newsandviews/article/399612/fda_says_29_million_pounds_of_antibiotics_used_in_food_animals_last_year/

FDA Says 29 Million Pounds of Antibiotics Used in Food Animals Last

Year

I was interested to read

FoodSafetyNews and learn about the FDA’s new count of the number and

pounds of antibiotics used to promote the growth of farm animals used as

food.

Because this is the first time the FDA’s Center for Veterinary Medicine

has produced such a count, it is not possible to say whether the numbers

are going up or down. But the agency is now requiring meat

producers to report on antibiotic use so we now have a baseline for

measuring progress.

The FDA has been concerned about the use and misuse of animal antibiotics

for some time now, so much so that in June it issued guidance on

The Judicious Use of Medically Important Antimicrobial Drugs in

Food-Producing Animals.

In the

Federal

Register notice announcing the guidance, the FDA explains:

Misuse and overuse of antimicrobial drugs creates selective

evolutionary pressure that enables antimicrobial resistant bacteria to

increase in numbers more rapidly than antimicrobial susceptible bacteria

and thus increases the opportunity for

individuals to become infected by resistant bacteria. Because

antimicrobial drug use contributes to the emergence of drug resistant

organisms, these important drugs must be used judiciously in both animal

and human medicine to slow the development of resistance. Using these

drugs judiciously means that unnecessary or inappropriate use should be

avoided….

In regard to the use of antimicrobial drugs in animals, concerns have

been raised by the public and components of the scientific and public

health communities that a significant contributing factor to

antimicrobial resistance is the use of medically important antimicrobial

drugs in foodproducing animals for production or growth-enhancing

purposes.

The overuse of antibiotics in farm animal production was a key focus

of the 2009 report of the Pew

Commission on Industrial Farm Animal Production. Our conclusion: the

overuse of antibiotics in animal agriculture is an enormous risk to

public health and should be stopped.

The FDA report may be short and issued without comment, but it is a sign

that the FDA is taking steps to address this serious public health

problem.

By n Nestle | Sourced from

Food Politics

Sheri Nakken, R.N., MA, Hahnemannian

Homeopath

Vaccination Information & Choice Network, Washington State, USA

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