June 23, 2011

  
US Senate bill seeks to limit antibiotics in animal feed

A bipartisan group of US senators re-introduced a bill late last week to limit the use of antibiotics in animal feed.

Public health experts and activists have pushed for regulation to limit the use of antibiotics in animal agriculture, in an effort to combat the rising threat of antibiotic resistance.

Senator Dianne Feinstein, the primary sponsor of The Preservation of Antibiotics for Medical Treatment Act (PAMTA), reintroduced the measure to address "the rampant overuse of antibiotics in agriculture that creates drug-resistant bacteria, an increasing threat to human beings."

"The effectiveness of antibiotics for humans is jeopardized when they are used to fatten healthy pigs or speed the growth of chickens," said Senator Feinstein.  "This is a basic food safety initiative that would phase out the misuse of these drugs so that food in supermarkets across America will not spread strains of drug-resistant bacteria."

The legislation phases out the non-therapeutic use of medically important antibiotics in livestock, and requires new applications for animal antibiotics to demonstrate the use of the antibiotic will not endanger public health.
 

It does not restrict the use of antibiotics to treat sick livestock or to treat pets.

The animal agriculture industry maintains that antibiotics are a critical tool for preventing disease and promoting animal health and welfare, casting doubt on the link between the industry's use of antibiotics and human health issues.
 

Recent estimates indicate around 80% of all antibiotics in the US are given to food animals.