Rep. Slaughter with Lawrence and Price, Pushing for PAMTA | March 2012
For years, we public health workers and scientists have been dogged by the problem of how to engage the general public with the problem of antibiotic resistance. It’s a nuanced and complicated problem, and it doesn’t boil down easily for the media. On top of that, the very powerful beef, pork, and poultry industries spend a lot of money to publicly deny the facts, misrepresent the data, and confuse the issue.
But now we’ve got mothers on the job. Read More >
A new U.S. Food and Drug Administration study has found that farmed shrimp can be added to the list of animal protein sold in grocery stores that harbors multi-drug resistant bacteria. That list, now being joined by farmed shrimp, includes pork, chicken, ground turkey, and ground beef.
The article was published in the peer-reviewed International Journal of Food Microbiology in February 2012, and while it has not been covered by the mainstream media, given the importance of the study findings I think this article deserves more attention. Read More >
Stephen Colbert with a Xanax nugget
Last week, Stephen Colbert used his signature blend of mock-outrage and wit on a topic very familiar to those of us here at the CLF.
In a segment called “Thought For Food,” Colbert commented on news reports that cited a recently published CLF study that found antibiotics (some of which have been banned for use in poultry), caffeine, acetaminophen, antidepressants and antihistamines in feather meal, a poultry by-product made from ground up poultry feathers and then incorporated into animal feed and used as a fertilizer. Read More >
In the weeks following the “pink slime” brouhaha, the responses have run the gamut—outrage, demands, disgust, defense, explanations, and excuses. I’d like to respond with a proposal that should help us reach some health goals, eliminate the need for pink slime filler, and prevent our hunger for “real beef” from causing more cow carnage.
Mark Bittman, in his column “The Pink Menace,” urges us to examine food system industrialization and the conditions that require the beef industry to use ammonium hydroxide to sanitize a product that, if it had been produced more responsibly, wouldn’t need to be sanitized. Tom Laskawy of Grist took a similar tack, pegging pink slime as the “tip of the iceberg” of what happens in meat production. Read More >
“In Cipro we trust.”
These were Tom Brokaw’s words on NBC Nightly News, in October of 2001, a month after the 9/11 attacks. As he said it, he held up a bottle of the antibiotic ciprofloxacin, which is used to treat anthrax. At that time, more than 30 people in the U.S. Capitol had tested positive for anthrax exposure, the result of some snail-mail terrorism.
Now, a new CLF study has uncovered a surprising link between drugs like Cipro and poultry products. (News release here.) These studies are getting some attention from The New York Times’s Nicholas Kristof, whose feathers are ruffled by the ickiness of what goes into poultry feed, as well as by the connection between antibiotic resistance and poultry production (“Arsenic in Our Chicken?”). Read More >
A bill to ban Roxarsone and other arsenic-based drugs from Maryland poultry production (H.B. 167) was undermined just hours before it passed the House of Delegates on Monday. An amendment adopted by the House states that the ban will not apply to any arsenic-based drug approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Under federal law, all drugs—including those that contain arsenic—must be approved by FDA before they can be sold. Because the amendment exempts all FDA-approved drugs, the amendment exempts all arsenical drugs. The bill would no longer protect Marylanders and consumers of Maryland chickens from increased arsenic exposure if companies begin using Roxarsone or an alternative arsenic-based drug once again. Read More >
Yesterday, a federal magistrate ordered the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to move ahead with a decades-old effort to withdraw approvals for several uses of antibiotics considered “critically important” to human health by the World Health Organization. This is a solid win for public health advocates and comes as FDA has proven unwilling to take seriously the threat of antibiotic resistance.
In 1977, FDA proposed withdrawing approvals for the use of penicillin antibiotics for growth promotion and the use of several tetracycline antibiotics in animal feed. Research showed then—more than three decades ago—that these uses were likely to select for antibiotic-resistant bacteria that can infect humans. Unfortunately, lobbyists for the pharmaceutical and animal agricultural industries persuaded Congress to delay the restrictions pending additional research. FDA did more research but took no further action for the next 34 years. Read More >
Hens in a battery cage. Photo credit: farmsanctuary.org
In the United States, for every citizen, there is roughly one laying hen. The majority of these birds are confined in battery cages, wire enclosures that typically afford each bird a space smaller than a single sheet of letter-sized paper.
This system is poised to undergo several major changes. Two unlikely allies, the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) and the United Egg Producers (UEP), are jointly working toward the enactment of H.R. 3798, a federal amendment that would afford laying hens several welfare measures. These include a gradual shift from battery cages to “enriched colony cages,” more spacious enclosures outfitted with perches, nest boxes and scratching areas. Enriched colony cages would allow birds greater freedom of movement and the ability to perform certain natural behaviors. Read More >
Rep. Slaughter with Lawrence and Price
As a panel of scientific experts spoke at Thursday’s Congressional briefings on the misuse of antibiotics in food animal production, a theme emerged: There is no longer any debate.
With evidence that is now irrefutable, the panelists addressed more than 120 Congressional staff and others in the Rayburn House Office Building and the Senate Visitor Center. Each echoed a plain and simple message: The science is clear on two points. First, by inappropriately giving antibiotics to livestock*, we promote the growth of new strains of bacteria that are resistant to existing antibiotics and can infect humans. And, second, that those antibiotic-resistant bacteria pose a serious, expensive, and sometimes fatal, risk for humans. The humans at risk, by the way, are not only the humans who eat meat or work with livestock. All humans are at increased risk for infection by antibiotic-resistant bacteria, including vegetarians and those who never have and never will set foot near a chicken, turkey, pig, or cow. Read More >
In 2008, 143 million pounds of beef from the Hallmark/Westland Meat Packing Co. in Chino, CA were recalled in what was the largest meat recall in U.S. history. The facility had failed to call in USDA Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) veterinarians to inspect cattle that were too sick or weak to stand on their own (known as “downers”), something particularly troubling given that this can be a symptom of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (aka mad cow disease). Further compounding the issue, the facility was a major supplier of meat to the National School Lunch Program. In response to this violation coming to light, the USDA tightened its rules on downer cattle and California enacted a law banning the slaughter of downed cattle, pigs, sheep, and goats for human consumption.*
What makes this case so important, besides the sheer size of the recall, is the fact that the violation was not initially brought to light by FSIS inspectors. The recall, USDA investigation, and the subsequent policy response were all triggered by an undercover video investigation undertaken by the Humane Society of the U.S. (HSUS). Read More >
