FDA on the Overuse of Antibiotics on Farms
Draft Guidance #209
For years, public health advocates have urged the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to exercise its legal authority and withdraw the approvals that allow important human antibiotics to be used for nontherapeutic purposes in meat production. Scores of scientific studies have concluded that these uses are responsible for antibiotic resistance in human diseases. Last year, FDA Deputy Commissioner Joshua Sharfstein told Congress that the FDA intended to address the problem of overuse of antibiotics in the livestock and poultry sectors. To date, the agency has stalled on that promise, issuing only Draft Guidance #209, a statement on its “current thinking” and a weak set of “recommended principles.” This document also frames the problem of overuse only in terms of growth promotion; it gives a pass to the practice of “routine disease prevention,” or the daily administration of low doses of antibiotics to whole herds or flocks of animals in the absence of any indication of a disease outbreak. This type of “disease prevention” is a crutch that allows CAFO operators to avoid good husbandry practices that could avoid and manage disease outbreaks responsibly, and is the ideal breeding ground for antibiotic-resistance.
While it is heartening to see the FDA finally acknowledging the connection between antibiotic overuse in animal agriculture and antibiotic-resistant human diseases, this is a very timid first step, at best, and does not live up to the agency’s earlier promise to address this problem head on. Draft Guidance #209, if finalized as currently written, does not mandate any changes in the livestock and poultry industries or suggest that the agency has any future plans to address antibiotic resistance with the urgency this problem requires. The likely outcome of this first step by FDA will be business-as-usual—continued overuse of antibiotics and rising rates of drug-resistance illnesses and deaths in humans.
The agency has asked for public comments on Draft Guidance #209 and it’s time to tell them to get serious about protecting our health and keeping antibiotic working today and for generations to come.
