Another effort to restrict antibiotic use in livestock

Apparently the Obama Administration favors a ban on routine uses of antibiotics in farm animals. In written testimony to the House Rules Committee, the principal deputy commissioner of the Food & Drug Administration, Dr. Joshua Sharfstein said the feeding of antibiotics to healthy chickens, pigs and cattle to encourage rapid growth should cease and farmers should no longer be able to use antibiotics in animals without the supervision of a veterinarian. Sharfstein says those practices have lead to the development of bacteria that are immune to many treatments.

Sharfstein’s testimony was for a hearing on a proposal from New York Congresswoman Louise Slaughter which would ban seven classes of antibiotics from being used in animals and restrict others to therapeutic and some preventative uses. Identical bills were introduced in both houses of Congress in March, this was the first action on either.

This is just the latest round in what has been an on-going debate between medical groups and farm groups. The Union of Concerned Scientists says that some 70 percent of antibiotics used in the U.S. are given to healthy livestock and poultry to boost growth or prevent illness. The National Pork Producers Council says only 13 percent of antibiotic use is for growth promotion and without antibiotics the retail price of pork would go up.