Several consumer-protection groups, including the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) and the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI), have filed a citizen petition with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) urging the agency to withdraw approval of seven antibiotics for disease prevention and growth-promotion use in livestock and poultry. “The use of medically important antibiotics in livestock production for growth-promotion or disease-prevention purposes is not shown to be safe,” the September 13, 2016, petition asserts. “FDA’s voluntary program will not end these drug uses. FDA must immediately begin proceedings to withdraw approval for these uses.” The day before the groups filed the petition, FDA announced a comment period about therapeutic uses of medically important antimicrobials. The agency seeks information about (i) “[t]he underlying diseases requiring these drugs for therapeutic purposes, and periods when livestock or poultry are at risk of developing these diseases”; (ii) “[m]ore targeted antimicrobial…
Tag Archives antibiotic
Government agency leaders, industry representatives, academics and public health advocates will gather in Washington, D.C., on June 3 for “Vote Food 2016: Better Food, Better Health.” Organized by the O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law at the Georgetown University Law Center, event sessions will target the next president’s food agenda, antibiotic resistance in livestock, sugar and obesity, and food insecurity, with the overarching goal of generating a “clear articulation of the range of legal and regulatory solutions [to health issues] available to whoever is elected in 2016.” The O’Neill Institute will later publish the conference proceedings and a related white paper. Issue 603
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has published its annual report of sales and distribution data for antimicrobial drugs used in food-producing animals. The report’s analysis of 2014 statistics and observed trends of rising antibiotic use immediately drew the ire of consumer advocacy coalition Keep Antibiotics Working (KAW). “The data released today shows us that, despite industry assurances to the contrary, the use of human antibiotics on the farm have continued to rise, and specifically the use of the critically important antibiotic class cephalosporins (12% increase from 2013 through 2014), which the FDA placed restrictions on in 2012,” a KAW policy analyst said. KAW condemns industry’s voluntary cutbacks and calls for FDA to establish mandatory reduction goals. “FDA must set clear targets for the reduction in antibiotic use,” according to KAW. “Otherwise, industry will continue to conduct business as usual, while the crisis of resistance continues to loom large…
California Governor Jerry Brown (D) has signed legislation (S.B. 27) that prohibits administration of a “medically important antimicrobial drug to livestock solely for purposes of promoting weight gain or improving feed efficiency” as of January 1, 2018. Under the statute, antibiotics may be used only when ordered by a licensed veterinarian through a prescription or veterinary feed directive. “The science is clear that the overuse of antibiotics in livestock has contributed to the spread of antibiotic resistance and the undermining of decades of life-saving advances in medicine,” Brown said. See Signing Message of Governor Edmund G. Brown Jr., October 10, 2015.
A Chilean appellate court has ruled that the nation’s National Fisheries and Agricultural Services must issue its data about antibiotics in Chilean salmon, which revealed that 50 salmon firms jointly used 450.7 metric tons of antibiotics in 2013. Chile’s Council for Transparency previously refused to release the information to conservation organization Oceana, arguing that the disaggregated data could be used against individual companies. The court disagreed, reportedly ruling, “The reasons given by the claimed party to refuse the requested information are not consistent with what establish the applicable regulations.” The report comes months after Costco Wholesale Corp. announced it would reduce the proportion of its salmon stock from 90 percent Chilean salmon to 40 percent in favor of salmon from Norway, whose fish-farming companies on average use lower amounts of antibiotics. See Fish Information & Services, September 11, 2015; Undercurrent News, September 21, 2015. Issue 579
U.S. Sens. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) have authored an August 17, 2015, letter expressing concern that the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, U.S. Department of Agriculture and U.S. Department of Defense have not yet responded to an executive order establishing a Presidential Advisory Council on Combatting Antibiotic-Resistant Bacteria. According to the letter, which claims that food animal production accounts for 75 percent of “medically important antibiotics sold each year,” the appointed agencies have failed to provide a formal response or approve nominations for advisory council members. In particular, the senators ask that the final council include at least three experts from outside the food industry. “As noted in our December 2014 letter, representatives from industrial animal producers associations and the veterinary drug industry have publically voiced doubts about the need to reduce antibiotic use in animals and about the impact that the…
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has announced a public meeting of its Science Board for July 29, 2015, at the agency’s campus in Silver Spring, Maryland. Among other things, the 21-member group will hear updates by Center for Veterinary Medicine representatives about two scientific initiatives and provide feedback about implementation of certain directives in the National Strategy for Combating Antibiotic-Resistant Bacteria. The board will also discuss the 21st Century Cures Act and be provided a status update about the Office of Medical Products and Tobacco. See Federal Register, July 13, 2015. Issue 572
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Homeland Security Investigations and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officers have reportedly confiscated since October 2014 about 450,000 pounds of honey produced in China but falsely declared to be from Latvia on import documents. Chinese honey has been subject to a high import tax—currently 221 percent—since 2001, when the U.S. Department of Commerce found that Chinese producers were dumping honey on the market by selling it for lower than production costs. An assistant special agent in charge of Homeland Security Investigations in Houston reportedly identified the city as a “key point of entry” into the United States; in November 2013, agents there seized Chinese honey worth $4.2 million that was falsely labeled as Malaysian and Indian. Chinese honey was also the subject of a 2002 U.S. Food and Drug Administration warning after concerns that it was adulterated with the antibiotic chloramphenicol, which is…
The Pew Charitable Trusts Campaign on Human Health and Industrial Farming has published an issue brief concluding that gaps in the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA’s) guidance for antibiotic use in livestock have allowed “some injudicious practices to persist.” Released in December 2013, FDA Guidance for Industry #213 aims to combat antibiotic-resistant bacteria by restricting the use of antibiotics in food animals for growth promotion. To this end, the agency asked drug companies to remove “feed efficiency” and “weight gain” indications from product labels and required veterinary oversight when these drugs are added to feed or water. After reviewing all 287 antibiotics affected by Guidance #213, Pew researchers reported that approximately one-quarter of these drugs “can be used in at least one species of livestock (chickens, turkeys, pigs or cattle) for disease prevention at levels that are fully within the range of growth promotion dosages and with no limit…
The San Francisco Board of Supervisors and Berkeley City Council last week each passed resolutions urging federal lawmakers to pass the Preservation of Antibiotics for Medical Treatment Act of 2013 (H.R. 1150) and the Preventing Antibiotic Resistance Act of 2013 (S. 1256). “Twenty-three thousand people die each year in the United States from antibiotic-resistant infections,” a Food & Watch representative was quoted as saying. “The public and elected leaders must take action to keep antibiotics working for people.” The San Francisco resolution also asks the city’s Department of the Environment to consider reducing purchases of agricultural products derived from animals using non-therapeutic antibiotics and residents of the city and county of San Francisco to reduce or eliminate their consumption of such products. See Food & Water Watch News Release, September 15, 2014.
