By SHELLY STRAUTZ-SPRINGBORN
Michigan Correspondent

LANSING, Mich. – Legislation recently introduced in Congress calls for removing and restricting important antibiotics for veterinary and farm use.

House Resolution 1549 seeks to amend the Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act to preserve the effectiveness of medically important antibiotics used in the treatment of human and animal diseases.

Specifically, the legislation seeks to restrict the use of critical antimicrobial animal drugs, which include any kind of penicillin, tetracycline, sulfonamide and several others. It also seeks to end the nontherapeutic use of such drugs, which may be used as a feed or water additive for an animal in the absence of any clinical sign of disease in the animal for growth promotion, feed efficiency, weight gain, routine disease prevention or other routine purposes.

Michigan Farm Bureau (MFB) and the American Farm Bureau Federation (AFBF) have expressed opposition to this legislation and a similar Senate Bill (SB) 619.

MFB Livestock and Dairy Specialist Ernie Birchmeier said passing this legislation would handicap veterinarians and livestock producers in their efforts to protect the nation’s food supply and maintain the health of animals on their farms.

“This is not a debate over the use of synthetic hormones,” Birchmeier said. “This is a debate about medicine – the kind of medicine that can mean the difference between a sick and healthy animal.”

AFBF President Bob Stallman agreed.

“Farmers and ranchers and the veterinarians they work with use antibiotics carefully, judiciously and according to label instructions, primarily to treat, prevent and control disease in our flocks and herds,” Stallman said in a letter to Congress. “In order to raise healthy animals, we need tools to keep them healthy, including medicines that have been approved as safe and effective by the Food and Drug Administration.”

The legislation is the result of years of studies, which offer evidence linking antibiotic resistance in humans with overuse or misuse of antibiotics in both human medicine and animal health. Recognizing the public health threat caused by antibiotic resistance, Congress has taken steps to curb antibiotic overuse in human medicine, but has not addressed antibiotic overuse in agriculture until now.

The bill states that one concern of legislators is that “unlike human use of antibiotics, these nontherapeutic uses in animals typically do not require a prescription.”

“And that many scientific studies confirm that the nontherapeutic use of antibiotics in agricultural animals contributes to the development of antibiotic resistant bacterial infections in people.” Thus, it is recommended that “antimicrobial agents should no longer be used in agriculture in the absence of disease.”

A voluntary survey by the Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, revealed that 84 percent of grower-finisher swine farms, 83 percent of cattle feed lots and 84 percent of sheep farms administer antimicrobials in the feed or water for health or growth promotion reasons. Many of the antimicrobials identified are identical or closely related to drugs used in human medicine, including tetracyclines, macrolides, bacitracin, penicillins and sulfonamides. However, Stallman said that 40 years of antibiotic use in farm animals demonstrates that the practice does not pose a public health threat.

In fact, “recent government data shows the potential that it might occur is declining,” Stallman said.

Bacteria survival through food processing and handling is decreasing, food-borne illness is down, development of antibiotic resistant bacteria in animals is stable and resistant food-borne bacteria in humans is declining, he said.

“Farmers provide the same care and compassion to their animals as people do with loved ones,” Birchmeier said. “A physician prescribing an antibiotic to help a child get over a nasty sinus infection or other ailment is no different than a veterinarian suggesting the same form of humane treatment for a farm animal. We wouldn’t want to deny people the benefits of modern medicine, so why would we want to deny animals?”

Ryan Findlay, MFB associate national legislative counsel, said that by opposing the legislation, Congress would be protecting the professional judgment of veterinarians and livestock producers in providing safe and healthful meat products for consumers.