FDA Caves to Pfizer, Industry on Antibiotics Ruling

The Food and Drug Administration has quietly withdrawn its order banning extralabel use of the antibiotic cephalosporin, so that it can "fully consider the comments" it has received on the issue.

When the agency announced the order on July 3, drug companies and agriculture groups were outraged. So many comments poured in that the FDA delayed implementation and extended the public comment period for 60 days.

We have to give cephalosporin to healthy animals, said the drug companies and factory farms. It's the only way to prevent disease and keep our meat safe.

Never mind that giving drugs to healthy animals was exactly the type of behavior the FDA was trying to stop. Overuse of antibiotics has this nasty habit of breeding antibiotic-resistant strains of disease, which could wreak havoc among humans as well as among food-producing animals. "Given the importance of the cephalosporin class of drugs for treating disease in humans," the FDA wrote in its initial release, "FDA believes that preserving the effectiveness of such drugs is critical."

But that's much less profitable for drug companies and meat-producers, at least in the short-term. Veterinarians might have had some legitimate claims -- there are some new diseases that aren't yet listed on cephalosporin labels, and the ban would prevent veterinarians from prescribing the antibiotic for those diseases.

But an update to the label seems a more appropriate measure than continuing to let farmers feed these powerful medications indiscriminately to all of their animals, possibly developing a super-virus in the process.

The FDA says it may issue a new ruling after it carefully considers all of the comments received from industry. But I'm not holding my breath.