New York Lawmaker Questions Industry on Livestock Antibiotic Use
U.S. Representative Louise Slaughter (D-N.Y.) has sent a letter to more than
60 food producers and retailers, “asking them to disclose their policies on
antibiotic use in meat and poultry production.” Citing “decades of research,”
the February 16, 2012, letter claims that agricultural antibiotic applications
have contributed to drug-resistant disease in humans and seeks to clarify
“the extent to which the fast food industry sources its meat and poultry from
companies that routinely use antibiotics to raise livestock.”
Slaughter, the only microbiologist in Congress, is soliciting information
from retailers about their meat and poultry purchasing practices, as well as
any efforts to educate consumers about the antibiotics used during food
production. In particular, the letter directs recipients to provide details about
whether their beef, pork and poultry supplies were produced (i) “without
any antibiotics”; (ii) “in a manner that includes antibiotics only for disease
treatment”; (iii) “in a manner that includes antibiotics only for treatment
and control of disease”; or (iv) “in a manner that includes the routine use of
antibiotics.”
“Very simply, consumers have a right to know what’s in their food,” Slaughter
stated in a concurrent press release. “The U.S. is facing a growing public health
crisis in the form of antibiotic-resistant bacteria, and information about how
these companies are contributing to its rise or resolution should be available
to consumers.”
To bolster this argument, Slaughter has also pointed to a recent study
explaining how livestock antibiotic use allegedly gave rise to a strain of
methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) known as MRSA CC398.
Lance B. Price, et al., “Staphylococcus aureus CC398: Host Adaptation and
Emergence of Methicillin Resistance in Livestock,” mBio, February 2012. Led
by the Translational Genomics Research Institute (TGen), scientists from 20
collaborating organizations apparently used whole genome sequencing “to
trace the likely history of MRSA CC398,” according to a February 21 TGen press
release.
Relying on 89 human and animal genomes from 19 countries and four continents, the study’s authors focused on MRSA CC398 as “a rapidly emerging cause of human infections, most often associated with livestock exposure.” Their results reportedly suggested that MRSA CC398 “started as a non-resistant (antibiotic-susceptible) strain in humans before it spread to food animals where it subsequently became resistant to several antibiotics,” including tetracycline and methicillin, “likely as the result of the routine antibiotic use that characterizes modern food-animal production.”
In response to these findings, Slaughter issued a February 21 press release
highlighting her efforts to pass The Preservation of Antibiotics for Medical
Treatment Act (PAMTA). “We know that the routine use of antibiotics in
livestock can create antibiotic-resistant bacteria that can kill humans,” she
concluded. “This discovery eliminates all cause for delay—we must raise our
livestock in a responsible and sustainable way. Every day that we continue the
routine use of antibiotics on healthy animals is another day we encourage the
growth of deadly superbugs.”
