Guidelines Issued For Antibiotic Use in Animals

(CBS)  An update now on a story we're been following closely about a health risk most people don't know about - farmers feeding antibiotics to healthy animals - just to spur their growth. Congress urged them this week to stop doing that because overuse of antibiotics in animals is creating new, drug-resistant strains of bacteria that can spread to humans.

CBS Evening News Anchor Katie Couric reports.

Dave Kronlage of Dyersville, Iowa told us he feeds antibiotics to his hogs before they get sick in order to accelerate growth and fend off diseases that can spread when livestock are raised in crowded conditions.

"You give it to them because you want them to be healthy," Kronlage said.

But this week on Capitol Hill critics worried giving antibiotics to livestock, unless medically necessary, may be creating dangerous, drug-resistant bacteria that can be passed on to humans.

"We would be shocked if a pediatrician ever ordered antibiotics for an entire nursery school class to keep the children from being infected," said Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif.

Katie Couric's reports on antibiotic use in animals
Animal Antibiotic Overuse Hurting Humans?
Denmark's Case for Antibiotic-Free Animals

The FDA, the CDC, and the Department of Agriculture are now urging farmers to stop feeding antibiotics to healthy animals. The industry is fighting back.

"Our position is that these products have been proven as safe and effective by the FDA," said Dr. Richard A. Carnevale, of the Animal Health Institute.

Dr. Stuart Levy first documented this problem more than 30 years ago after feeding 150 healthy chickens low levels of tetracycline for months.

"By one week, almost all e. Coli bacteria in the intestinal tracts of chickens were tetracycline-resistant," Levy testified.

By three months, Levy testified, the chickens were resistant to other classes of antibiotics as well. So were farm workers and members of the community.

Pew Campaign On Human Health and Industrial Farming
Keep Antibiotics Working
American Medical Association
American Academy of Pediatrics

Russell Kremer, a free-range hog farmer, told us he nearly died from a drug-resistant strain of strep after being gored by an angry boar that had been fed a daily diet of penicillin.

The industry insists they are using antibiotics appropriately. But in a CBS News four-month investigation drug distributors and dozens of farm workers in four farm belt states (Iowa, Missouri, Arkansas, Oklahoma), told us antibiotic use to promote growth remains widespread on farms.

In a recent government survey over 70 percent of farm workers admitted they used antibiotics in baby pigs for this purpose, most without consulting a veterinarian.

The FDA recently put out draft guidelines urging farmers to stop these practices.

And if they don't follow the guidelines?

Well, a bill pending in Congress could force the issue by banning the use of growth-promoting antibiotics in healthy livestock particularly those that are critically important to humans.

[newsterI]

"and fend off diseases that can spread when livestock are raised in crowded conditions."

Well bucko, maybe you'd do well to stop raising these animals in SOBIBOR style concentration camps!!!


"You give it to them because you want them to be healthy," Kronlage said. "

Aint working, it's making things WORSE you idiot.


"The FDA, the CDC, and the Department of Agriculture are now urging farmers to stop feeding antibiotics to healthy animals. The industry is fighting back. "

Urging eh? maybe it's time to pass a LAW banning this feeding of controlled drugs to livestock this way, you need a prescription from a doctor to even get penicillin or tetracycline from a pharmacy, why should these animal murderers be able to buy 50 pound barrels of the stuff over the counter and just feed it to livestock anyway they feel like??

Antibiotics were not designed to be GROWTH drugs!!!

[KeithDrippingSprings]

We have known this for 25 years, antibiotics are dangerous to use and the health effects on the people that eat the meat are well documented. So, why has this taken so long and why is there really no teeth in the law and why will there be no enforcement?

That is an easy question. Our Scoundrels and Thieves that we call Legislators think that their personal fortunes are more important than the health of their constituents. The Scoundrels and Thieves believe that the people are too stupid to think for themselves and that the profits of the major pharmaceutical companies are more important than our health.

Like Joe Biden who never listens to anything because he never shuts his mouth our Legislators never studied the issues in animal health they just voted like they were told and then cashed the check.

[howard05]

Nursing organizations nationwide have expressed their opposition to non-therapeutic use of medically important antibiotics by supporting the Preservation of Antibiotics for Medical Treatment Act (S. 619/H.R. 1549. This opposition is based on the increase in antibiotic resistance. Antibiotic resistance continues to be a growing problem in the U.S. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) roughly 2 million patients get an infection in a hospital, and about 90,000 of those patients die as a result of that infection.

Get involved today - go to the Health Care Without Harm's Protect Antibiotics Toolkit at http://www.noharm.org/us_canada/nurses/protect_antibiotics.php

[howard05]

This topic is important for the improvement of human and animal health. Check out a few videos made by Registered Nurses concerned about the increasing use of antibiotics and hormones in our livestock.
Go to Part 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C6pDvnoT_l0
Part 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sicQXOhXpUU
Part 3: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IbvfJYRkg2k

[unshrub]

I raise pigs and the ONLY reason they need to use antibiotics is because many commercial hog raiser raise the hogs in too close of confinement to be healthy. When each farmer raised a few hogs each there was no need to use antibiotics. FOUR corporations now raise most of the hogs raised in the US today, and they only care about maximizing profits. Back when farmers raised them, they also eat a few of them, and they were a lot more concerned about raising safe and healthy food.

[thechooch1]

Why is the FDA REQUESTING that this dangerous practice end? Haven't they seen the studies from other countries? Antibiotics should only be given to fight disease not blanket application for reasons such as making live stock bigger. We are paying the price for this in the resistant strains killing people.

[WillowSunstar]

I am against feeding animals all these drugs. They would be unnecessary if the animals were kept in humane conditions in the first place.

Not to mention, who knows what these antibiotics are doing to worsen obesity and other health issues in humans?

[mike 901]

greedy ignorant Farmers

[unshrub]

please check your facts before you start called people names. These are very large corporations that either raise them directly or contract them out to farmers to raise them. The farmers must feed them the way they are ordered to raise them. The only way to raise them without antibiotics is to STOP raising them in confined areas.

[KeithDrippingSprings]

You do not know any farmers do you. Just as I suspected and idiot talking about things you know nothing about.

The corporations that feed out 90% of the pork and 80% of the beef there are 5,000 slaughter houses that process about 29 billion pounds of meat each year. Those are the people that make the money and make the decisions about how animals are raised.

The farmers are on the bottom of the food chain and many small farms fail every year leaving more and more corporations making decisions that have nothing to do with the safety of the food produced or the health of the people that consume the food.

[maiingan]

The agribusiness euphemism for antibiotic use to fatten them up is "feed efficiency." I'd heard about this off-label use years ago and was pleased that my e-mail to Chicago's WTTW about this was aired a few days ago. The "raised in crowded conditions" in the story refers to what are called "Confined Animal Feeding Operations" - the acronym is "CAFO." Interested readers can plug these terms into Search engines to learn more quickly.

[notparicular]

Just look at those animals, dirty dogs! And you are worrying about antibiotics!