Advisers to the Food and Drug Administration ruled in January that the proposed rules need fine-tuning but that most should go into effect despite protests from makers of animal drugs that the agency is drastically overreacting. Among other things, the rules would set pre-established terms for when an animal antibiotic has shown signs of enough drug resistance that its use should be curbed or banned altogether. Drug manufacturers adamantly opposed many of FDA's plans, saying the rules would make it too difficult and expensive to create new antibiotics for animals. He pleaded with the industry to find a compromise that protects consumers while still giving farmers drugs vital for animal health. Antibiotics are fast losing their power against numerous germs, which get a chance to mutate into untreatable strains every time they encounter the drugs.
Many scientists say antibiotics on the farm are forcing food-borne germs to start mutating, too.
In addition, a strain of salmonella impervious to five antibiotics nearly killed a Vermont dairy farmer. Almost half the 50 million pounds of U.S.-produced antibiotics is used in animals. Already, Europe has drawn the ire of the animal health industry by banning six antibiotics used as animal growth promoters, including one closely related to the vital human antibiotic vancomycin. The government would test today's level of food-borne drug resistance, and then set limits on how much that resistance could increase before an animal antibiotic would be restricted or even banned. Chesapeake is a publication of the Maryland Chapter of the Sierra Club.