What the FDA hid from you
Organic Consumers Association
Feb. 23,2014
ESSAY OF THE WEEK
Resisting the Truth
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has known for more than 12 years (36 years, by some accounts) that the routine use of antibiotics in livestock is harmful to human health. What has it done to protect you?
Nada.
According to the Center for Disease Control’s (CDC) “Antibiotic Resistance Threat Report,” published in September 2013, two million American adults and children become infected with antibiotic-resistant bacteria each year. At least 23,000 of them die as a direct result of those infections.
Unless you eat organically raised meats, every piece of meat you eat will give you a small dose of antibiotics. That small dose isn’t enough to kill bacteria. And that’s the problem. The bacteria that aren’t killed, become stronger. So strong, that they no longer respond to higher doses of antibiotics when you need them.
In December, the FDA finally made a move (only after being forced to by the courts) it said is intended to curb the reckless use of antibiotics in livestock. Sadly, it falls far short of what we need.
ACTION ALERT
When a Plan Is Not Really a Plan
On December 11, 2013, the U.S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA) finally announced a plan to curb the routine use of sub-therapeutic doses of antibiotics to treat and fatten up livestock on factory farms.
But the mostly voluntary, loophole-riddled “plan” falls far short of what scientists say is needed to stop the spread of antibiotic-resistant superbugs that now pose a real and widespread danger to public health.
Rep. Louise M. Slaughter (D-N.Y. 25th District), the only microbiologist in Congress and author of the Preservation of Antibiotics for Medical Treatment Act (PAMTA), had this to say about the FDA’s long-awaited plan: “The FDA’s voluntary guidance is an inadequate response to the overuse of antibiotics on the farm with no mechanism for enforcement and no metric for success.”
Part of the FDA’s so-called plan includes something called the Veterinary Feed Directive (VFD). The FDA says the new VFD rule will help curb the routine use of antibiotics in livestock. But in fact, according to the Pew Charitable Trusts, the new rule may actually weaken veterinary oversight of antibiotic use on factory farms, unless changes are made to strengthen the rule.
The FDA is accepting comments on the VFD rule. It needs to hear from you that the VFD rule needs three changes before it’s approved. It needs to:
- Maintain the federal valid veterinarian-client-patient relationship definition, which says the veterinarian has recently seen the animals to be treated or visited the farm where they are kept.
- Continue to require that two years of data on antibiotic use in feed are retained, rather than just one. This practice is necessary to determine whether these new policies are actually reducing antibiotic use for livestock year over year.
- Ensure that the expiration date of the VFD does not extend past the life of the targeted animals, six months after it is written, or the label directions—whichever is shortest. This provision will decrease the chances that antibiotics are reordered without a legitimate, identified need.
TAKE ACTION: Comment on the VFD Rule here
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On February 7, 2014, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) 
“Don’t judge each day by the harvest you reap, but by the seeds you plant.” – Robert Louis Stevenson
