Feds Failing To Act On Antibiotic Resistance Despite Grave Threat, Health Advocates Warn

HUFFINGTON POST

Lynne Peeples Become a fanlynne.peeples@huffingtonpost.com

Public health advocates are fuming over a new court ruling that they say could hasten the coming of the next pandemic.

In a 2-1 decision released Thursday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit ruled that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration need not consider banning the use of antibiotics in healthy food-producing animals.

"We believe that this decision allows dangerous practices known to threaten human health to continue," said Avinash Kar, an attorney with the Natural Resources Defense Council. "Adding antibiotics to farm animals' feed, day after day, is not what we should be doing. It's not what the doctor ordered and it should not be allowed."

In March 2012, a federal court ruled that the FDA must act on scientific knowledge that the overuse of antibiotics in animals raised for food has contributed to the rise of antibiotic-resistant infections in humans. That decision came in response to a lawsuit filed by the NRDC concerning findings made by the FDA back in 1977. Feeding livestock low doses of penicillin and most tetracyclines, the agency had concluded, might pose a risk to human health. The FDA never acted on or retracted those findings.

More ...

Crane Dance Farm Offers Pasture-Based Livestock Farm Work Experience

Crane Dance Farm, a Less=More Coalition member, is offering a farm work experience for a student or non-student. Application deadline is April 30, 2014. Details below:

Pasture-Based Livestock Farm Internship

 

Crane Dance Farm is a grass-based livestock farm nestled among the rolling hills, forests, and wet lands of beautiful Barry County. We raise 100% grassfed beef, Animal Welfare Approved pastured heirloom pork, poultry and eggs, emphasizing farming techniques that nurture the land, the animals, the humans and the planet. Every animal is the recipient of TLC 24/7. We direct market all of our products, thus our customer relationships are parallel in importance to our relationships with our animals.

What makes this opportunity unique?

· All of our cattle and pigs are bred, birthed, and finished on our farm.

· We source, grind, and mix local grains for our omnivores that are 100% GMO-free.

· We direct market all of our products through farmers markets, on farm sales, and online ordering.

· We were the first Michigan farm to be Animal Welfare Approved for pigs in 2009. Presently, we are one of only two farms in MI to hold this prestigious certification. Pending is our status as American Grassfed Association certified for beef.

Intern Responsibilities:

· Daily attending to food, water, shelter, bedding, fences for all livestock

· Property maintenance and repairs

· Marketing assistance

· Participation in problem solving as situations arise

Expectations:

· Work outside in all kinds of weather

· Work efficiently alone and as part of a team

· Ability to lift 60 pounds repeatedly

· Aptitude in farming, building and mechanical skills

· Easy to work with, fast learner, sense of humor, heart for animals

Intern Provisions:

· Housing, plus one shared meal a day; additional cooking facilities and foodstuffs available

· Weekly stipend with bonus at satisfactory completion of agreed duration

· Minimum length of stay 4 months; longer preferred; negotiable

· Willing to work with your college for internship credit

Application Process:

· Letter of interest and resume to cranedancefarm@gmail.com by April 30, 2014.

· Phone interview

· Working interview on farm

When Are Antibiotic-Resistant Microbes "Superbugs?"

By: Heather White, Executive Director

THURSDAY, APRIL 25, 2013

Last week, the Environmental Working Group released a report analyzing antibiotic resistance of bacteria detected in supermarket meat. We unearthed data buried deep in the annual report of theNational Antimicrobial Resistance Monitoring System, a federal food safety effort run by the Food and Drug Administration, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and U.S. Department of Agriculture.

This government report is unfamiliar to most readers because it consists of large amounts of raw data and undecipherable jargon. EWG crunched the numbers to make these data accessible to busy readers who don’t have time to parse a dense 82-page, highly technical government tome.  We want to show you what you deserve to know  -- that the increasing presence of antibiotic-resistant microbes on meat is a serious problem for public health.

Our report struck at nerve at FDA.  The agency issued a statement calling it “misleading” and “alarmist.”  You can read our full response here.  Essentially, the FDA argued that antibiotic resistance to only one drug is not that big of a deal because there are still some other antibiotics that could treat bacterial infections – for now.

More ...

Report links antibiotics at farms to human deaths

SFGate.com

Carolyn Lochhead

Updated 8:34 pm, Friday, September 20, 2013

Washington -- The Centers for Disease Control on Monday confirmed a link between routine use of antibiotics in livestock and growing bacterial resistance that is killing at least 23,000 people a year.

The report is the first by the government to estimate how many people die annually of infections that no longer respond to antibiotics because of overuse in people and animals.

CDC Director Thomas Frieden called for urgent steps to scale back and monitor use, or risk reverting to an era when common bacterial infections of the urinary tract, bloodstream, respiratory system and skin routinely killed and maimed.

"We will soon be in a post-antibiotic era if we're not careful," Frieden said. "For some patients and some microbes, we are already there."

The discovery of penicillin in 1928 transformed medicine. But because bacteria rapidly evolve to resist the drugs, and resistance is encouraged with each use, antibiotics are a limited resource.

2 million infections

Along with the annual fatalities, the report estimated at least 2 million antibiotic-resistant infections occur each year. Frieden said these are "minimal estimates" because they count only microbes that are resistant to multiple antibiotics and include only hospital infections, omitting cases from dialysis centers, nursing homes and other medical settings.

More ...

Consumer Reports finds superbugs in turkey

Consumer Reports finds superbugs in turkey Our new study found more evidence that raising food animals on antibiotics can impact the effectiveness of our life-saving drugs. If you want antibiotics to work when you need them, tell Congress to stop the mass feeding of drugs to animals.

Consumer Reports’ latest investigation confirms that all those antibiotics being fed to our food animals domatter.

Released today, our study found meat from conventionally raised turkeys – which can be routinely fed antibiotics –had bacteria resistant to more drugs than birds raised without antibiotics. Since one way superbugs can spread to people is through raw meat, it’s crucial you know these findings.

It's important to cook turkey thoroughly, and we have tips to help you avoid antibiotic-raised meat. But just avoiding the problem isn’t the solution. Industrial food producers must stop playing this dangerous game with our life-saving drugs – and a bill has been introduced to do just that!

Email Congress to stop mass feeding of antibiotics to food animals, and check out our new investigation and tips.

Eighty percent of antibiotics sold in the U.S. are used by beef, pork and poultry producers so healthy animals can plump up faster and tolerate crowded, unsanitary conditions. This daily use of antibiotics kills off those bacteria vulnerable to drugs, leaving immune ‘superbugs’ to flourish and spread to animals, the environment, and eventually, us.

We’re tackling this problem from every angle. Consumer Reports is testing food for these bacteria, and making sure labels mean what they say so you can shop smart. We’re backing a bill in Congress to end the routine use of antibiotics on food animals. It would preserve our antibiotics by phasing out mass-feeding of drugs to food animals, restricting their use to sick animals.

And we’re on the ground asking Trader Joe's – one of the nation’s most progressive grocers that has already demonstrated care for customers' health on other issues – to lead the way and stop selling meat raised on drugs.

Tell Congress to save our antibiotics for when we need them. Get this bill moving.

Ask your friends and family to join you in taking action – this is a problem we can fix if we all demand action.

Sincerely,
Jean Halloran, Consumers Union
Policy and Action from Consumer Reports

http://www.cbsnews.com/2102-505269_162-57554632.html

November 27, 2012 7:52 AM

Consumer Reports sounds alarm on pork safety

(CBS News) Consumer Reports is sounding the alarm over the safety of pork. A new study shows that chops and ground pork may be full of bad bacteria. A whole host of food-borne illnesses is caused by these bacteria, such as stomach aches, vomiting, diarrhea, fever -- and in the most extreme cases, even death.

But Consumer Reports, an independent, nonprofit organization that provides ratings and product comparisons, says bacteria are not the only thing pork eaters should be concerned about.

For years, pork has been promoted by the industry as healthy food option -- "the other white meat." But a new report suggests otherwise.

Urvashi Rangan, Consumer Reports director of consumer safety and sustainability, said, "We found potentially harmful bacteria on most of the samples of pork that we tested. One organism we looked at, enterococcus, is more a measure of filth indication, maybe fecal contamination."

Of nearly 200 pork samples tested by Consumer Reports, many tested positive for salmonella, listeria, staph bacteria. The magazine says a whopping 69 percent contained Yersinia, which infects nearly 100,000 Americans every year. Children are especially vulnerable.

Stephen Morse, of the Columbia University School of Public Health, said, "You always expect to find some bacteria in any meat product. But those are usually harmless. I think the real surprise here was to find so many potentially disease-causing bacteria."

Even more, 90 percent of the bacteria Consumer Reports found were said to be resistant to antibiotics. In other words, they were super-bugs.

Rangan said, "All of these things paint a very concerning picture about this indiscriminate use of antibiotics in meat production in this country, and what we believe are the resulting consequences of that."

Consumer Reports was also alarmed by traces of ractopamine in one-fifth of pork they tested. Farmers use the drug on their hogs to produce leaner cuts of meat. It was originally developed to treat asthma, but never approved for human use.

Scott Hurd, a former top food safety official at the U.S. Department of Agriculture, who has done consulting work for the pork industry, says Consumer Reports is "inflamed and used a small amount of data to frighten people." And he says the meat is safe.

Hurd, of the Iowa State University College of Veterinary Medicine, said, "The average person would have to eat over 700 pounds of pork every day for their entire life in order to get enough ractopamine to be above that acceptable level by FDA."

Hurd says the sample size of the Consumer Reports study is too small to draw any broader conclusions. But he adds germs can be found in nearly everything we eat, so consumers should always be careful when handling meat. That means cooking meat thoroughly and washing your hands.

Consumer Reports study:

http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/pork0113.htm