Health

FDA Bans Drugs Used on Poultry

By CBSNews.com staff CBSNews.com staff

January 31, 2002 / 8:40 AM EST / CBS

The FDA reportedly plans to ban two antibiotics widely used by poultry farmers because of a risk that humans could become infected with germs that resist treatment.

Public health organizations have advocated such a ban for years. Officials warn that resistance to antibiotics is threatening to render penicillin and other infection-fighting drugs ineffective.

The ban, however, is ruffling some feathers. Bayer Corporation's Animal Division, of Shawnee Mission, Kan., which makes the drug called Baytril, dominates the market and it says it might contest the proposed ban.

"We want to take a look at the basis of the (FDA's) decision," senior vice president John Payne was quoted as saying. "We have always said if we thought our product is causing harm, we would do the right thing."

Public health organizations, including the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the World Health Organization, have advocated such a ban for years. But agriculture and pharmaceutical interests have successfully held them off until now.

The drugs, known as flouroquinolones, were approved for chickens, turkeys and cattle in the mid-1990s. Since then the incidence of resistance to flouroquinolones in humans has increased dramatically.

They have been available for human use since 1986 and are often used to treat serious gastrointestinal illness. The FDA ban would not affect the availability of the drugs for humans.

Resistance develops when antibiotics are overused, both by doctors treating people and by farmers treating animals. The drugs treat respiratory problems in chickens and turkeys. Because the birds are raised in large flocks, it is impossible to treat them individually, so the drugs are put in drinking water for the entire flocks.

The FDA is also reviewing the use of flouroquinolones in cattle as part of a comprehensive examination of all agricultural antibiotic use.