Livestock Antibiotic Use Bill Introduced

Senators unveil bipartisan bill to restrict use of antibiotics in food animals

By Julian Pecquet - 06/16/11 05:27 PM ET

Four senators - three Democrats and a Republican - have introduced legislation that would restrict the use of antibiotics in animal agriculture.

The bill is a companion measure to legislation introduced earlier in the House by Rep. Louise Slaughter (D-N.Y.). It would ban farmers from using seven classes of antibiotics critical for human health expect to treat sick animals.

The bill comes as the House on Wednesday repealed a provision of the 2012 agriculture spending bill that aimed to prevent the Food and Drug Administration from similarly restricting antibiotic use in livestock and poultry. The amendment, from Rep. Denny Rehberg (R-Mont.), drew concerns from Energy and Commerce Chair Fred Upton (R-Mich.) because of its wide-ranging policy implications.

"Congressman Rehberg has been working with Chairman Upton to highlight his concerns about FDA's burdensome and unscientific regulations on Montana's ag community while avoiding any unintended consequences that could come through the appropriations process," Rehberg spokesman Jed Link told The Hill.   Read More

Theres a couple of things that never get talked about when this issue comes up.  First is that healthy livestock contribute to a healthy human population.  And the other is that by not preventing disease, we will end up treating the disease.  This means that we will end up using more antibiotics in the long run.  I have always used antibiotics in a very judicious manner because I want them to continue to work as well.  The added expense is also  a big deterrent for anyone to use them inappropriately.  

Along with that, any serious reform must involve discussions about how doctors prescribe, and patients use, antibiotics as well.  Livestock use is only part of the total equation.  

Antibiotics Prevent Livestock Losses

Cutting back on antibiotics use poses hurdles for hog farmers
BY PHILIP BRASHER • PBRASHER@DMREG.COM • AUGUST 22, 2010

State Center, Ia. - The Obama administration would like to see more hog farmers raising hogs the way the Hilleman brothers do - using fewer antibiotics.

But raising hogs with fewer antibiotics has its challenges, the brothers say. One big one: Some of the black Berkshire hogs grunting and rooting around the Hillemans' barns are likely to get sick and die before they're ready for market. That's because it's sometimes impractical to treat them, the brothers say.

Randy, Mark and Tom Hilleman raise the hogs for a local cooperative, Eden Farms, that markets Berkshire pork to high-end restaurants.

Farmers who raise Eden Farms pork earn a premium price for the pigs, because the Berkshires are valued by chefs at high-end restaurants because of the hogs' fatter, darker meat.

But farmers who supply Eden Farms cannot use antibiotics for growth promotion, a common practice on conventional farms, and they cannot use the drugs at all if the hogs are within 100 days - more than three months - of going to slaughter.

If a sick pig doesn't get better on its own, it's likely to get a shot of an antibiotic, unless the animal is under the 100-day drug ban. If the hogs are given antibiotics then, they can only be sold as conventional hogs, and that means keeping a treated animal in a separate pen or marking it in some way to make sure it wasn't mixed with the hogs that will be marketed under the Eden Farms label. But the Hillemans say it's impractical for them to treat the pigs and handle them separately. For every 100 hogs they raise, the brothers figure that two or three die of pneumonia or some other illness. The Hillemans send about 100 to 150 hogs to market each week.    Read More
 
When we hear people outside of ag demanding antibiotics be limited or banned for use in livestock, they rarely seem aware of the consequences of those demands. The bottom line is more livestock will suffer through disease or die as a result. Regardless of production method, all livestock will be more prone to disease, suffer more because of it, and put more pressure on our food production system. There will always be ways we can improve our use of these tools, but making demands of livestock producers without changes in other antibiotic uses will only contribute to the unnecessary suffering of livestock.

Antibiotics In Ag Essential

Antibiotics in agriculture are essential for animal and human health
By Peter Silley, professor of applied microbiology at the University of Bradford - 07/13/10 02:06 PM ET

Antibiotic resistance is a significant global public-health challenge that has created an emotional public response among critics, public-health experts, and animal-health advocates. It involves debate over antibiotic use in both humans and animals, and demands improved monitoring and surveillance, more research and, ultimately, the development of a range of tools that will help reduce reliance on antibiotics. This week’s Energy and Commerce Committee hearing, “Antibiotic Resistance and the Use of Antibiotics in Animal Agriculture,” will further examine how these products are used in agriculture and their impact on human health.

The emotional rhetoric surrounding this issue has resulted in knee-jerk legislative proposals to ban certain uses of antibiotics. Blunt policy instruments could be harmful when dealing with such a critical and complicated issue. It is easy to point fingers and suggest that eliminating some uses in animals would reduce antibiotic resistance in humans. But it is important to act on specific, data-driven evidence. Simple widespread bans on certain uses — including those in animals — would be detrimental to animal health and, more importantly, human health.

If we are to contain the spread of antibiotic resistance, we need careful, data-driven understanding of the sources and causes of that spread. Antibiotic resistance is a collection of specific problems, or specific pathogens resistant to particular drugs. Specific bacterial/drug combinations, or “bug-drug combos,” must be considered separately from other combinations.

Scientific risk assessments conducted by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration or by private researchers demonstrate that none of these three bacterial/drug combinations are related to the use of antibiotics in animals. Read More


Healthy livestock are essential for safe and healthy food. But as usual, the anti-animal agriculture groups are using this debate to further their agenda. It’s clear that in order to make any meaningful reform of antibiotic use, the human side must be addressed first. A perfect example would be how antibiotics are distributed in other parts of the world. In some countries you can buy them right over the counter without a doctor’s prescription. They are greatly misused in the US as well by the over-prescribing doctors and the careless patients who fail to follow directions. In the livestock industry you will never see them being used incorrectly. It costs too much money and is too important to the health of the livestock for that to happen. No one who is advocating for antibiotic use changes in livestock only can be taken seriously. ~Troy

Congress Learns About Livestock Antibiotic Use

AVMA Briefs Congress On Importance Of Antibiotics
TheCattleSite.com

US - The nation's largest veterinary association briefed Congress yesterday (29 March) on the uses of antibiotics and how they help protect animal health, providing in-depth scientific information on the necessity of antibiotic use for preventing and treating disease in companion animals and livestock.

Two educational sessions were held by the American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA) with honorary hosts Representative Kurt Schrader, DVM, (Oregon) and Senator John Ensign, DVM, (Nevada), the only veterinarians serving in Congress. The discussions allowed congressional staffers to learn about when and how veterinarians utilise antibiotics to keep both food supply animals and household pets disease-free.

Speaking at the briefings as an expert in livestock medicine, Dr Lloyd Keck, a worldwide animal health consultant to the poultry industry and former AVMA Congressional Science Fellow, dispelled arguments related to human antibiotic-resistance risks.

Dr Keck said: "Antibiotics are necessary for veterinarians to protect the health and well-being of animals. Benefits to animals and people outweigh the current risk associated with bacterial resistance. Going forward, we need to let good sense and good science guide this issue." Read More

For those who raise livestock, keeping them healthy is your job. Restricting the use of antibiotics would prevent them from doing that job. The idea that you should let animal get really sick before you could start treating them flies in the face of good animal husbandry. Not only that but keeping our livestock healthy is also an important step in keeping ourselves healthy.

Who Do We Trust?

Who do you trust to tell you the truth about food safety?
Posted Tuesday, February 16, 2010, at 2:00 PM
By Marcia Gorrell

Is our food safe or not?

Are today's farmers feeding and taking care of their animals properly?

It seems to come down to who you trust.

Do you believe the family farmers who have spent their whole lives producing food? The farmers who have built modern farming techniques, step by step, generation by generation -- building on the lessons, failures and successes of those who farmed before them?

Do you believe the scientists or researchers who have spent their entire careers studying animals, nutrition and food safety? Do you believe the USDA or the FDA who are tasked with making our food supply safe?

I have as much suspicion as anyone when it comes to the government, but in the case of food safety, I can't argue with the results.

Of course, if you don't believe those people -- or me -- you can believe the reports like the one recently by Katie Couric of CBS News. It blamed antibiotic use in animals for the rise of antibiotic resistance in humans.

If she would have contacted farmers and veterinarians, as I did, she might have found out there are two sides to every story.

Again, if you don't believe me, you might believe Michael Pollan, the journalism professor from the University of California-Berkeley, who has become a self-appointed "food expert" but has never spent time actually raising food or feeding an animal day after day.

Recently Pollan was on Oprah, spouting his oft-repeated line that corn is not a natural food source for cows (and ruminants) and that we are force-feeding the foodstuff causing them to become sick.

According to Pollan, in order to feed cattle corn, we have to also feed them antibiotics.
For most farmers, that statement is so laughable they can't believe someone would actually believe it. In fact, most don't think it is worth a response. Read More

As we travel the country and share the experience we had with Pollan, I continually remind our audiences that they are the experts in the discussion of food production. Pollan is a journalism teacher. Unfortunately, he has discovered that he can make himself quite wealthy by trying to frighten people about our food supply and demonizing the farmers and ranchers who raise it. For some reason, people would rather be scared about our food rather than hear the truth. Nice job of sharing this story with your readers Marcia.

Katie Couric's Report, Part 2

Pork Industry Strives to Set the Record Straight in Wake of CBS Story
FarmFutures.com
2/11/10

A two-part report aired on the CBS Evening News with Katie Couric focused on antimicrobial use in food animal production and it got the attention of the agriculture industry.

Among other things, the report suggests antibiotic use in livestock is leading to more resistance in humans, a trend Dr. Jen Greiner says isn't supported by the science.

"We're just not seeing those trends," Greiner said. "Our producers are working on using antibiotics responsibly on farms each and everyday."

Greiner is Director of Science and Technology for the National Pork Producers Council. She notes Denmark placed a ban on antibiotic growth promoters in the late 1990s, and while CBS called it a great success story, Greiner says that's just not the case.

"When you go to Denmark and talk to producers in that country they will tell you that banning antibiotic growth promoters not only created more pig deaths and caused their pigs to suffer, but also it didn't have a positive public health outcome," Greiner said.

Greiner says that legislation that has been introduced in the House would not only ban antibiotic growth promoters but would also ban antibiotics for preventing disease as well as controlling disease. Meaning producers would only have the ability to treat a clinically sick animal. Greiner says that would be an unmitigated disaster for the industry and ultimately impact consumers.

Read More

In a classic example of one-sided reporting, Katie Couric told her audience last night that there are no reasons good reasons to use antibiotics in livestock. She said the only reason that it was being done in factory farms in this country was to make more money. Increasing the level of sickness and death in our livestock herd doesn’t sound like a great idea to me. All of us are concerned about keeping antibiotics effective, which is why strict usage guidelines are followed. While Couric had the opportunity to tell the whole story of antibiotic use and how that affects livestock health and food safety, she chose not to.

Couric's Antibiotic Piece Part 1

Katie Couric's 3-minute “Factory Farm” Barrage
By Dairy Herd Management staff Wednesday, February 10, 2010
Editors Note: Dairy Herd Management is a sister publication of Pork.

The fact that she used the term “factory farm” or “factory farming” five times in a three-minute period probably showed her bias.

CBS Evening News anchor Katie Couric left the confines of her New York City TV studio to visit an Iowa hog farm and ask some questions related to antibiotic use in livestock — and whether such use could be contributing to drug-resistant bacteria. The first of a two-part series aired Tuesday night.

Here’s an exchange between Couric and Liz Wagstrom, DVM, vice president, science and technology, National Pork Board:

Couric: “Some people say giving animals antibiotics to prevent illiness or promote growth is like putting antibiotics in a child’s cereal. You know, save them so they’ll work when they’re really needed.”

Wagstrom: “I’d say that we do strategically place them. It’s not an all day, every pig gets antibiotics every day of its life.

Couric: “So you don’t think they’re being overused by farmers anywhere in this country?”

Wagstrom: “The vast majority of producers use them appropriately.”

Couric also interviewed some poultry plant or hatchery workers in Arkansas who reportedly became infected with methicillin-resistant staph or MRSA. In the case of one worker, doctors had to try several drugs that usually work on this type of infection before finding one that saved his life.

“Public-health officials are concerned,” she reported. “If workers who handle animals are getting sick, what about the rest of us? Drug-resistant infections have skyrocketed over the past two decades, killing an estimated 70,000 Americans last year alone. It’s an emerging health crisis that scientists say is caused not only by the overuse of antibiotics in humans, but in livestock as well,” she said.

See the entire broadcast. The broadcast runs 7 minutes, 37 seconds. There is one three-minute stretch where Couric makes five references to "factory farms" or "factory farming."

Tonight (Feb. 10), CBS Evening News will air part two. It will reportedly focus on Denmark and what happened to farmers, livestock and people in that country when the use of antibiotics "in healthy farm animals" was banned. Link

It seemed that Couric made a very conscious effort to paint the picture that only faceless “factory farms” use antibiotics. The reason this was done is because she knows that it’s popular to attack so-called factory farms, but not family farms, even though the two are one in the same most of the time. She also ignored much of the real science that is available on this subject in favor of personal opinion and lay person expertise. After tonight’s portion, we will be get the full picture of what this report is saying, but unfortunately I think I already know.

Katie Couric's Report on Antibiotic Use in Livestock

Watch CBS News Videos Online

Tonight will begin the two part series on CBS News about antibiotic use in livestock. Unfortunately by the looks of the preview, Katie is going to be more interested being an activist rather than a journalist. Just count how many times she uses the undefineable term "factory farm" in this preview.

I am very concerned about "superbugs" and antibiotic resistance, just like everyone else. However, attacking one area of usage, mostly the low hanging fruit, will not help. All of us use products that are designed to kill bacteria every single day. If we want to have a serious discussion about antibiotic resistance, we are going to need to evaluate everything. I will be disappointed if Katie doesn't address that.

This should open up many opportunities for family farmers and ranchers to explain how and why they use antibiotics. Their is a big misconception that all livestock are fed antibiotics all the time. The phrase most commonly used is "they are pumped full of antibiotics". They are just too expensive to do such a thing. I don't know who she refers to everytime she talks about a factory farm, but everyone that I know who raises livestock tries to give them the very best care possible.

That's the story I am looking forward to sharing with people.

Antibiotic Story More Opinion Than Fact

US Ag alliance not happy with antibiotic review
12 Jan 2010
www.vetsweb.com

The Animal Agriculture Alliance in the US is offended by the unbalanced claims in the widespread Associated Press article entitled "Pressure Rises to Stop Antibiotics in Agriculture".
Released on Dec. 29, the story (437 initial pages in Google) was the third installment of a five-part series about antibiotic resistance in the United States. Unfortunately, AAA says, the authors did not offer a balanced analysis of the complex issue, instead relying on biased sources to portray America's food producers in a negative light. “Antibiotics are a judiciously-used tool employed by farmers and ranchers with veterinarian oversight to further their goal of raising healthy animals,” AAA says in a press release.

"America's farmers, ranchers and veterinarians are committed to ensuring the health of their animals and the safety of their products," said Kay Johnson Smith, Alliance Executive Vice President. "Antibiotic use in agriculture is carefully monitored to provide a healthy, plentiful food supply for all."

Opinion blurs factsThe AP article dangerously blurs the line between opinion and fact. Although the authors quote an unsubstantiated estimate that 70% of the antibiotics used in the US are administered to livestock, they fail to acknowledge that nearly half of the total estimated amount is made up of ionophores and other compounds not used in human medicine that do not impact human resistance.

The article also inaccurately suggests that animal feed is constantly "laced" with antibiotics. In reality, each antibiotic is administered according to the specifications of a US Food and Drug Administration-approved label that clearly indicates the number of doses and duration of use.

Read More


In the recent tradition of mainstream media, The AP article about antibiotics was more concerned with sharing opinions than facts. The ability to keep our livestock healthy shouldn’t be taken lightly. It’s comical to hear that feeding antibiotics to livestock just covers for poor management. A statement like that displays an incredible lack of understanding for how and why they are used. That’s like saying the parent of any child who’s been given antibiotics is a bad parent. The reason farmers and ranchers are concerned about keeping the ability to use antibiotics in livestock is because they care. Raising healthy animals is our top priority and the thought of losing an important tool like this due to hype and opinion is frustrating to say the least. ~Troy

Antibiotic Article Gets Facts Wrong

Pressure rises to stop antibiotics in agriculture; animals fed 70 percent of US antibiotics

By: MARGIE MASON AND MARTHA MENDOZA Associated Press12/29/09 12:19 AM EST

FRANKENSTEIN, MO. — The mystery started the day farmer Russ Kremer got between a jealous boar and a sow in heat.

The boar gored Kremer in the knee with a razor-sharp tusk. The burly pig farmer shrugged it off, figuring: "You pour the blood out of your boot and go on."

But Kremer's red-hot leg ballooned to double its size. A strep infection spread, threatening his life and baffling doctors. Two months of multiple antibiotics did virtually nothing.

The answer was flowing in the veins of the boar. The animal had been fed low doses of penicillin, spawning a strain of strep that was resistant to other antibiotics. That drug-resistant germ passed to Kremer.

Like Kremer, more and more Americans — many of them living far from barns and pastures — are at risk from the widespread practice of feeding livestock antibiotics. These animals grow faster, but they can also develop drug-resistant infections that are passed on to people. The issue is now gaining attention because of interest from a new White House administration and a flurry of new research tying antibiotic use in animals to drug resistance in people.

Researchers say the overuse of antibiotics in humans and animals has led to a plague of drug-resistant infections that killed more than 65,000 people in the U.S. last year — more than prostate and breast cancer combined. And in a nation that used about 35 million pounds of antibiotics last year, 70 percent of the drugs — 28 million pounds — went to pigs, chickens and cows. Worldwide, it's 50 percent. Read More

Efforts to restrict the ability to use antibiotics as an animal health tool have been going on for awhile now. As with many news article lately, this one didn’t stand up to the first “fact-check” I did. According to the story, there were 65,000 deaths from drug-resistant infections. We have no idea where this number came from since the reporters didn’t tell us. They claim that’s more deaths than breast and prostate cancer combined. But one trip to the American Cancer Society website proved that wrong. So what else in this article is wrong? Was this done to make the story more dramatic? I doubt we will ever know for sure, but I continue to be amazed at the lack of integrity and professionalism of some journalists.

Along with that, to claim that it's all the fault of agriculture is insane. Any plan to regulate the use of antibiotics would need to address how humans regularly abuse the drugs.

Complete Picture of Antibiotic Resistance

Antibiotic Resistance: A Complete Picture
By Pork news staff Monday, November 30, 2009

It’s almost popular to point to antibiotic use in animal agriculture as the primary driver behind the antibiotic resistance phenomenon, but that’s falling short of the complete picture. According to a report by the American Academy of Microbiology, the causes of antibiotic resistance are varied and complex.

Suggesting that antibiotic resistance occurs mainly as a result of antibiotic abuse or misuse doesn’t accurately portray the complete picture. In a report called “Antibiotic Resistance: An Ecological Perspective on an Old Problem,” AAM indicates that even appropriate antibiotic use can contribute to the spread of resistance, underscoring the complexity of explaining its causes and the error in focusing on any one area.

According to the report, “There are no scapegoats.” The report is based on a colloquium that AAM brought together in October 2008.

“Responsibility is partly due to medical practice, including patient demand; veterinary practice; industrial practices; politics; and the antibiotics themselves. Ultimately, resistance development is founded in the inevitability of microbial evolution,” the report states.

It also states that antibiotic resistance is essentially uncontrollable. “Antibiotic resistance is an international pandemic that compromises the treatment of all infectious diseases,” it outlines.

LINK

When it comes to the discussion of antibiotic resistance, the low hanging fruit to attack is the use of antibiotics in livestock. For most of my life, anytime I have seen a situation like this where one particular use of a product is being singled out as the “problem”, it’s never worked out that way. And that’s what this report is confirming for us. It’s not just the fact that the farmers and ranchers use antibiotics for animal health, it’s every way that antibiotics have been used that is contributing to this emerging problem.

Reporter Eating Meat Makes You Sick

Eating animals is making us sick
By Jonathan Safran Foer, Special to CNN

New York (CNN) -- Like most people, I'd given some thought to what meat actually is, but until I became a father and faced the prospect of having to make food choices on someone else's behalf, there was no urgency to get to the bottom of things.

I'm a novelist and never had it in mind to write nonfiction. Frankly, I doubt I'll ever do it again. But the subject of animal agriculture, at this moment, is something no one should ignore. As a writer, putting words on the page is how I pay attention.

If the way we raise animals for food isn't the most important problem in the world right now, it's arguably the No. 1 cause of global warming: The United Nations reports the livestock business generates more greenhouse gas emissions than all forms of transportation combined.

It's the No. 1 cause of animal suffering, a decisive factor in the creation of zoonotic diseases like bird and swine flu, and the list goes on. It is the problem with the most deafening silence surrounding it.

Perhaps in the back of our minds we already understand, without all the science, that something terribly wrong is happening. We know that it cannot possibly be healthy to raise such grotesque animals in such grossly unnatural conditions. We know that if someone offers to show us a film on how our meat is produced, it will be a horror film. Read More

Foer is desperately trying to jump on the anti-agriculture bandwagon that was hitched by Michael Pollan. If it wasn’t so serious, it would almost be comical how people like Foer repetitiously use indefinable buzz words like factory farming (more than 20 times in this piece) throughout their articles. He never does tell us what a factory farm is. All of this is in an effort to scare people about the safest food supply in the world. Our livestock aren’t sick or tortured. True torture will come if people like Foer get their way and we have to watch our fellow human beings starving to death because we aren’t growing enough food. People like Foer and Pollan are the true picture of greed. They are the ones advocating reckless policies that will cause a decrease in the food supply at the very time when we should be doubling it.