FDA allows use of antibiotics in livestock despite “high risk” to humans

The release notes that the significance of these findings extends beyond the thirty antibiotic feed additives reviewed. A large body of scientific work on bacterial cross- and co-resistance has established that the misuse of one antibiotic can actually lead to bacterial resistance to other antibiotics. Consequently, the thirty penicillin- and tetracycline-based animal feed additives in this analysis could reduce the effectiveness of a range of other medically important antibiotics that are solely used to treat people.

FDA first recognized the risks from the use of antibiotics in animal feed in 1977 when it proposed to withdraw approvals for animal feed containing penicillin and most tetracyclines. NRDC won a lawsuit against the FDA for failing to follow through and address the threat posed by the misuse of penicillin and tetracyclines in the livestock industry. Instead of acting on their own scientific findings and heeding the court ruling, FDA appealed, and a decision is now pending in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, in New York.

The World Health Organization (WHO) lists penicillins as critically important for human medicine and tetracyclines as highly important. Penicillins are commonly used to treat bacterial meningitis and syphilis in humans. Tetracyclines are commonly prescribed for eye infections, Lyme disease, gonorrhea, and chlamydia. FDA also recognizes both as highly important. Unfortunately, both penicillins and tetracyclines are no longer effective for treating some infections because of high levels of resistance in bacteria, brought on, in part, due to their widespread use in industrial farms. Increasing resistance to these drugs decreases the options available for human treatment.

FDA inaction and human health risks
NRDC says that FDA’s failure to act on its own findings on the thirty reviewed antibiotic feed additives is unfortunately consistent with the agency’s history of failure effectively to deal with this issue. Today, 70 percent of all medically important antibiotics sold in the United States are sold for use in livestock production — not on humans. FDA is responsible for regulating the use of antibiotics in animal agriculture, but has done little to address the growing misuse and overuse of these drugs by the industry since first recognizing the health risks nearly four decades ago.

In 1977, the agency itself concluded that feeding animals low doses of certain antibiotics used in human medicine, namely penicillin and tetracyclines, could promote antibiotic-resistant bacteria capable of infecting people, and posed a risk to human health. Since then, the science on the human health risks of these practices has only gotten stronger but drugs sales for livestock use have continued to trend upwards nearly unchecked.

Despite FDA’s own scientific findings — and two federal court orders in 2012 resulting from NRDC litigation that require the FDA to act on the misuse of antibiotics on animals that are not sick — the agency has not followed through. Instead, FDA issued voluntary Guidance 213, which offers no meaningful improvement over the agency’s lack of action over the last thirty-six years.

During that time, leading health groups, medical doctors, and other scientists from the American Academy of Pediatrics to Infectious Disease Society of America have sounded the alarm, stating that “overuse and misuse of important antibiotics in food animals must end, in order to protect human health.”

These groups and others, including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the World Health Organization, warn that the overuse and misuse of antibiotics in animals that do not need them can create dangerous drug-resistant “superbugs” capable of infecting humans.

NRDC says that antibiotic resistance in humans has reached a crisis point, threatening the efficacy of many life-saving drugs. CDC recently confirmed the link between antibiotic use on industrial farms and the rise of antibiotic resistance in Antibiotic Resistance Threats in the United States, 2013, saying there is “strong scientific evidence of a link between antibiotic use in food animals and antibiotic resistance in humans,” and warns of “potentially catastrophic consequences” if resistance is not slowed. The CDC also stated that “Up to half of antibiotic use in humans and much of antibiotic use in animals is unnecessary and inappropriate and makes everyone less safe.”