human lives by combating disease.
The lawsuit was cheered by Democratic Representative Louise Slaughter, Congress’s only microbiologist and a lonely voice against the overuse of drugs in animal feed:
The growth of potentially deadly antibiotic-resistant bacteria is a looming public health crisis in America. Today’s lawsuit is an indication of the growing concern about the overuse of antibiotics in agriculture. We should be able to buy our food without worrying that eating it will expose our families to bacteria no longer responsive to medical treatments. The FDA needs to take common sense steps to reduce the needless use of antibiotics in healthy animals, and protect human beings
The FDA hasn’t responded to the suit yet, but greens will face an uphill battle trying to convince the federal government to restrict the use of antibiotics for growth promotion. The agricultural lobby is a powerful one, and it has fought any effort to reduce drug use, claiming that restrictions would lead to sicker animals and more expensive food—an argument that might have more traction in these days of high food prices. A bill Slaughter first proposed in 2007 that would have restricted antibiotics for growth promotion has gone nowhere.
But European countries have had success in reducing antibiotics without damaging meat production. Denmark—the biggest pork exporter in the world—banned the use of antibiotics in chickens and adult swine in 1998, and young swine in 1999, out of concern for drug resistance. Though it took industry a few years to adjust, today antibiotic use is down overall, while livestock production has increased. (Drugs are still allowed for treating sick animals, but their use is controlled by veterinarians.) I had a chance to visit some Danish pork producers on a trip to Copenhagen in 2009, and found that industrial scale pork production was possible without excessive antibiotic use—farmers just needed to use a little more care in raising their animals. Come on, American farmers—if a bunch of Danes can do it, surely you can too.
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