by
Editorial staff, The Times-Picayune
Protecting public health used to mean getting people to take their medicine. But as drug-resistant bacterial strains have emerged, curbing the unnecessary use of antibiotics has also become a priority.
To its credit, the Food and Drug Administration took a step in that direction Thursday, when it announced a ban on the use of the antibiotic Baytril in poultry.
Manufactured by the German company Bayer, the drug is commonly used to treat respiratory infections in turkeys and chickens. But when poultry producers administer it, they don't necessarily do so selectively; adding the drug to food or water supplies for an entire flock means that healthy birds get it as well.
Drug-resistant bacteria evolve when mutant strains of a given bacterium survive and reproduce despite the presence of an antibiotic. That has happened with Baytril in chickens. Because that drug is similar to antibiotics that are used in humans, certain Baytril-resistant infections in humans are now more difficult to treat.
A number of major chicken producers have already sworn off using Baytril, and several large fast food chains have stopped buying chickens treated with Baytril and a class of other similar drugs.
The development of antibiotics, one of the great triumphs of 20th-century medicine, gave doctors powerful weapons to fight bacterial infections and saved innumerable lives. But the effectiveness of these drugs has suffered because of overuse and improper use. By banning the use of Baytril in poultry, the FDA showed that it is taking a major public-health threat seriously.The Times-Picayune (New Orleans, LA)
