Antibiotics in ag debate gains momentum

This could be the year that the issue of curtailing the use of antibiotics in food animals receives its most serious consideration in Washington, D.C.

"Momentum is definitely building on the issue," said Dr. Jennifer Greiner, director of science and technology for the National Pork Producers Council. "It has the most momentum I've seen in recent history."

A bill sponsored by Rep. Louise Slaughter (D., N.Y.), the Preservation of Antibiotics for Medical Treatment Act, would ban farmers from using antibiotics in animals unless they are sick. It has languished through several sessions of Congress, having been introduced in various forms every year since 1999.

Last year, Slaughter injected the antibiotic issue into congressional debate on food safety, as well as in agriculture appropriations discussions.

"She has said numerous times she wants to visit this issue in 2010," Greiner said. "She believes (there is) an issue with antibiotic use in agriculture, and she wants to address it with her bill."

The Obama Administration's stand on the issue became clear last summer, when Dr. Joshua Sharfstein, deputy commissioner of the Food & Drug Administration, told federal lawmakers that farmers need to stop feeding antibiotics to healthy animals. His comments came during a congressional hearing on Slaughter's proposal.

"Dr. Sharfstein mentioned a change in FDA policy in regard to antibiotic growth promoters as well as prevention use of antibiotics," said Greiner. "However, he did not provide any detail. What we've seen is our opponents and media take his words and twist them around to say something he did not really say."

After Sharfstein's comments, the pork industry gave him a tour of a hog farm in Illinois.

"We worked to help Dr. Sharfstein understand what it takes to raise a pig," Greiner said. "He did understand that there are certain times when we do have to use antibiotics in the feed and water."

Sharfstein advocates a system that would ensure documentation of antibiotic usage and whereby veterinarians would follow a protocol for administering medicines to animals similar to what doctors use in human medicine.

"When we're treating a group of pigs, a group of cattle or a flock of birds, we have to worry about the health of all of those animals," Greiner said. "We're trying to maintain the health of every animal and every bird in that herd or flock. Population medicine is a different concept than you or I going to a doctor and having them treat us individually.

"From experience, I can tell you that what works on our farm may not work in North Carolina or Oklahoma," Greiner added. "It's very difficult for us to have a cookie-cutter approach to veterinary medicine. We need to allow our veterinarians to actually practice the art of medicine."

FDA's position that medicines for prevention and control should be under the supervision of veterinarians needs clarification, Greiner said.

"What FDA has not been able to do is outline what that looks like," she said. "Are they going to require a prescription? There was no guidance given on what 'veterinarian supervision' means.

"We support the science and believe the use of antibiotic growth promoters facilitates and promotes animal health," Greiner added. "The reason those products allow the animal to grow better is because they are keeping the animal healthier."

Media misconceptions

News media coverage of the antibiotics-in-agriculture issue has seen an upswing in recent weeks. One in particular -- a lengthy Associated Press report in late December -- drew a strong response from the pork council.

Greiner described the report as being "way off base" and filled with inaccuracies.

"The thing that really jumped out at me was the attempt to link farmers to having antibiotic-resistant infections, ... that farmers will have a greater incidence of resistant infections," said Greiner.

Data from the National Antimicrobial Resistance Monitoring System, coordinated by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, FDA and the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention, do not show such a trend, according to Greiner.

"We're not seeing that those resistant infections are showing up in farmers or in the meat case," she said.

The Associated Press report also states that 70% of antibiotics used in the U.S. go to livestock -- a statistic that has often been repeated by those who advocate restricting farmers' use of antibiotics since it was included in a report from the Union of Concerned Scientists nine years ago.

"That's a wild guess," said Greiner. "There is no database that collects human antibiotic use. If we don't know how many antibiotics are being used in humans, how can we say 70% of all antibiotics in the U.S. go to animals?"

Research shows that the risk to public health from the use of growth promoters in food animals is extremely low, according to Greiner, and science supports maintaining the health of animal herds.

"We're also seeing more science coming out that animals being sick through the course of their lives have higher incidences of foodborne pathogens on their carcasses. By maintaining the health of our animals, we are providing a safer, more wholesome product for consumers," she said.

News media coverage of the issue has perpetuated a number of misconceptions, according to Greiner, chief among them being that farm animals are fed copious amounts of antibiotics from birth to harvest, that livestock veterinarians don't have enough oversight of how antibiotics are used and that producers are not smart enough to use antibiotics responsibly and appropriately.

"We just need to make certain that this complicated topic is not sensationalized," Greiner said. "I agree that veterinarians need to do due diligence and diagnostics. We need to document the use of antibiotics as outlined in the industry's Pork Quality Assurance Plus program, but we also need to allow our veterinarians to practice medicine."

No-brainer

A proposal saying antibiotics should not be used in healthy animals is seemingly a "no-brainer" to the average consumer, Greiner said, but the devil is in the details.

"It is a very complicated and complex issue that our opponents and some of the mainstream media have tried to sensationalize," said Greiner. "Livestock producers and veterinarians are doing everything in our power to provide a safe, wholesome and affordable food product for consumers here in the U.S. and around the world."

Greiner also cited research conducted at Iowa State University showing banning growth promoters but still allowing producers and veterinarians to use antibiotics for prevention, control and treatment would cost U.S. producers $6 per pig in the first year and would cost the industry $1.1 billion over 10 years. It would also result in a 2% increase in retail pork prices.