Last week, the FDA fired a serious warning shot across the bow of industrial food animal producers stating in a new draft guidance that it expects industry to change its antibiotic use practices. The draft guidance asks for two simple things: stop using “medically important” antibiotics as growth promoters, limiting use to only treating sick animals; and ensure that producers do not administer these drugs without veterinary supervision. Unfortunately, the FDA says guidance documents, “do not establish legally enforceable responsibilities.”…

The Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) estimated in 2001 that as much as 70 percent of all the antibiotics sold in the U.S. were used to promote growth in food animals…

The Animal Health Institute – an organization that lobbies for pharmaceutical companies such as Bayer, Pfizer and Novartis – told the New York Times that it estimated only “13 percent of agricultural antibiotics were used to promote growth.” As Times reporter Gardiner Harris keenly pointed out, if the FDA, “some day bans growth promotion as a use, there is a chance producers would simply relabel such uses as preventative.”…

While it is not perfect, there is proposed legislation on the table right now entitled thePreservation of Antibiotics for Medical Treatment Act (PAMTA). Congresswoman Louise Slaughter introduced the latest version of PAMTA last March. The bill calls for:

·      Phase out the non-therapeutic use in livestock of medically important antibiotics;

·      Require this same tough standard of new applications for approval of animal antibiotics;

·      Does not restrict use of antibiotics to treat sick animals or to treat pets and other animals not used for food.

More than 300 organizations including the Center for a Livable Future, American Public Health Association, American Medical Association, and National Association of County and City Health Officials support the passage of the PAMTA.