Atop the food chainThe fewer antibiotics in animal feed, the better for human healthIt wasn't too hard to tell when the weight of consumer opinion started swinging against the routine use of antibiotics in food animals to make them grow faster. Giant fast-food corporations in 2003 began asking meat and poultry suppliers to stop using antibiotics important in treating human illnesses. The food companies were aware of the evidence showing bacteria strains are growing unresponsive to antibiotics; that scientists are scrambling for alternatives to treat the hardier strains; and that resistant bacteria can be carried by cattle, poultry and pigs.
The Food and Drug Administration finally is catching up in the effort to curb extensive use of antibiotics in animals. Five years ago, it banned the use of fluoroquninolones in chickens and turkeys. This class of drugs, including antibiotics such as Cipro, is also the standard, effective treatment for foodborne infections in humans.
The Bayer Corp., which manufactures the antibiotic for poultry, appealed the decision. It took until this July, but the FDA affirmed the initial decision to take the drug off the market by Sept. 12, the first such ban of a class of antibiotics. The decision recognizes the severe implications for human medicine posed by resistant strains of bacteria. Disappointingly, Bayer again is challenging the order, with support from the Animal Health Institute. Another lengthy appeals process merely increases the health risks to humans.
In withdrawing approval of the poultry antibiotic, the FDA said the drug does not eliminate campylobacter bacteria from the intestinal tract of poultry. A significant cause of food poisoning, the bacteria can create complications for patients with weakened immune systems, the young and the elderly. The agency concluded the drug leaves treated flocks with a resistant strain that is transferred through the transport, slaughter and processing of the birds. The proportion of resistant infections has increased significantly, it said, since it approved use of the drug.
The FDA has made a good start. The larger battle, though, is to halt the abuse of antibiotics as feed additives for all food animals, not only poultry.Akron Beacon Journal (OH)
