As a nutrition professional, my focus on chicken has been on healthy preparation methods, appropriate portion sizes, which part of the animal to eat, and what colorful foods should surround it on the plate. Discussion of what happens before the chicken gets to the plate had been rare, until recently, as consumers become more sensitive to what’s going into to our food and how it can affect the environment and our personal health. I recently had my first in-person experience with one of the hurdles in promoting a healthy change in food production. It was a major eye-opener to see how great of a hurdle the legislative process can be. Read More >
Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus
News media outlets throughout the nation were abuzz last week with the report of new scientific research showing, for the first time, how a strain of infectious Staph began life in humans, then spread to livestock where it became MRSA, and then jumped back to humans. The study was published Tuesday in the online journal mBio.
National Public Radio’s popular blog, The Salt, noted in its lead story Tuesday, that “Researchers have nailed down something scientists, government officials and agribusiness proponents have argued about for years: whether antibiotics in livestock feed give rise to antibiotic-resistant germs that can threaten humans.”
“Finally, a smoking gun connecting livestock antibiotics and superbugs,” said a headline in the online environmental publication Grist, written by contributing writer Tom Laskawy. As one who has covered the topic for years, Laskawy was not understating the importance of the research. Read More >
Flu season has arrived, and it’s sure to be a nuisance—but will it be interesting? This year, the CDC is keeping a keen eye on three novel swine flus that have infected humans. This pig-to-human transmission is noteworthy in itself, but there’s more: two of the three swine flu viruses have taken on genetic material from the 2009 H1N1 virus, in a process known as reassortment.
Confirming the onset of flu season is a February 10 Flu Report by the CDC; the arrival of flu season is nothing remarkable. But since August, the CDC has reported three novel influenza A virus variants (H3N2v, H1N1v, H2N2v) that have infected humans in the U.S., for a total of 14 cases. (Twelve of the 14 cases are H3N2v.) All three viruses originated in swine herds, and CDC has labeled the infection of humans with these swine flus as “rare events.” On December 9, the CDC was “taking this situation very seriously.” Read More >
Q & A with D’Ann Williams
Several years ago, CLF fellow D’Ann Williams, DrPH, was traveling through Yakima Valley, Washington, and was struck by an indescribable smell. The Valley is home to a great number of dairy cows in high-density operations—72 percent of the dairy facilities in the Valley have more than 500 cows each. (A point of reference: in the nation as a whole, only three percent of all dairy operations are that big.) The smell inspired a study, with colleagues Patrick Breysse, PhD, and other Center affiliates*, and it was published last fall in Environmental Health. The study measures the concentration of airborne pollutants in homes close to dairy operations, and the pollutants include particulate matter (PM) and ammonia. Many airborne contaminants are unregulated, and the health effects of exposure are unknown. Recently, I was able to talk with Williams about her research and her recommendations. Read More >
For the third time in as many years, legislation to ban arsenical drugs from poultry feed has been introduced in Maryland, with House Bill 167 introduced on Tuesday. The ban, if enacted, would help to curb the ongoing problem of arsenical drug use by the poultry industry, and associated public health risks to poultry consumers. For a glimpse of what’s in store for Maryland on this important issue, here’s an update on all things arsenic and the prospects for similar legislation in this upcoming session: Read More >
Last Tuesday, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced that it will ban the “extra-label” use of cephalosporin antibiotics in food animals—that is, veterinarians will not be permitted to use drugs in this class of antibiotics except in ways approved by FDA. (A “drug class” refers to a group of drugs that work in similar ways. Cephalosporins are members of the broad group of beta-lactam antibiotics, which includes penicillin drugs as well. Beta-lactams kill bacteria in similar ways.) FDA’s announcement came almost two weeks after the agency said it would not restrict the use of the other group of beta-lactams, penicillins, as well as tetracyclines, two other drug classes on which it had contemplated taking action. In the span of just two weeks, then, FDA has moved to prevent misuse of one drug while shirking its responsibility for two others. One step forward, two steps back. Read More >
Kremer with piglet (The Missourian)
Drug-resistant infections are nothing to sneeze at. Margaret Chan, Director-General of the World Health Organization, this year said that “in the absence of urgent corrective and protective actions, the world is heading toward a post-antibiotic era, in which many common infections will no longer have a cure and, once again, kill unabated.” Last year, a New York Times article addressed the increase in drug resistance and how it is outpacing the development of new antibiotics; in the article, Brad Spellberg, a doctor specializing in infectious disease at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center, said “For these infections, we’re back to dancing around a bubbling cauldron while rubbing two chicken bones together.”
Last week, I attended a Congressional briefing on the use of antimicrobials in food animal production sponsored by Representative Louise Slaughter (D–NY) and organized by the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy (IATP). Read More >
How are concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) profiting from Farm Bill subsidy programs targeted at U.S. crop farmers? How are these “hidden subsidies” for industrial farm animal production (IFAP) hurting more sustainable food animal producers? The answers to these questions lie—and are at stake—in the convoluted world of the 2012 Farm Bill legislation.
To say that the Farm Bill is both large and complex is understating the obvious. This legislation impacts every aspect of our food system. One role that the Farm Bill has is to dole out billions to subsidize various producers and industries of the U.S. food economy. A large portion of these programs subsidize crop production. The largest recipients of the most federal dollars through these programs are corn and soybean producers. Read More >
Also contributing to this post is Tyler Smith, Senior Research & Policy Assistant in the Farming for the Future program.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) held a public meeting (video on YouTube) this past Monday at its Rockville campus to discuss reauthorization of the Animal Drug User Fee Act (ADUFA). The current version of ADUFA includes an important provision that requires drug sponsors to report sales of antimicrobial drugs intended for use in food animals to FDA. The agency compiles these sales data and releases a limited summary to the public each year. The 2009 summary report of ADUFA data allowed CLF researchers to calculate the quantity of antimicrobial drugs sold domestically for use in food animals as a percentage of the total quantity of antimicrobial drugs distributed in the U.S. While useful, these public summaries of ADUFA data are very short, comprising just a few pages that provide the quantities of certain antimicrobial drug classes sold in the previous calendar year (see the reports for 2009 and 2010). The summaries do not currently provide many data that non-governmental public health scientists, state and local public health officials, and veterinarians need to better understand patterns in antimicrobial use and resistance. Read More >
This June, South Korea took a giant leap in protecting human health, the environment, and animal welfare—by banning antibiotic use in animal feed. This is big news.
Most importantly, the ban comes at a time when we know with greater and greater certainty that the misuse of antimicrobials in industrial farm animal production (IFAP) is linked to an increase in antibiotic-resistant infections in humans. (A very recent article by Bonnie Marshall and Stuart Levy, published in Clinical Microbiology Reviews, provides one of the most comprehensive summaries of the evidence to date. For more on this read this blogpost by CLF’s Tyler Smith.) Other negative impacts of using antibiotics in animal feed to promote growth and as prophylaxis against the unsanitary conditions of IFAP include allowing to continue practices that degrade the environment, compromise animal welfare, and, too frequently overlooked in discussions about IFAP, harm the mental and physical health of IFAP workers. Read More >
