FDA Fails to Get Farm Animals Off Drugs

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has been working on guidelines for the more "judicious" use of antibiotics in food animals. The reasons to limit antibiotic use in livestock are many. We know that the overuse of drugs causes antibiotic-resistant bacteria, or "superbugs," and that we find these superbugs in our supermarket chicken, sickening factory farm workers, and even in pests that reside on farms. We also know that about 80 percent of U.S. antibiotics now go to livestock. And the overuse of drugs in livestock means that the antibiotics we use to treat human illness may no longer be effective in combating disease.

While the FDA guidelines on antibiotic use in livestock my be well-intentioned, they've got one major, glaring flaw: They're just guidelines — they're not at all enforceable by law.

The FDA first released its draft guidelines on antibiotic use last June. The draft guidelines couldn't make it any clearer that they were not intended to be legally enforceable in any way. From the draft: "FDA’s guidance documents, including this guidance, do not establish legally enforceable responsibilities. Instead, guidances describe the Agency’s current thinking on a topic and should be viewed only as recommendations, unless specific regulatory or statutory requirements are cited. The use of the word 'should' in Agency guidances means that something is suggested or recommended, but not required." The FDA might as well have slapped a big, red, "Feel Free to Ignore This" sticker right on the literature.

The FDA's own press release stressed that the agency supports limiting medically important antibiotics in food-producing animals to situations where these drugs are considered necessary for assuring animal health. This would mean that farmers should no longer engage in the common practice of administering antibiotics for growth. The report cites research that the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) has conducted on antibiotic resistance and antibiotics in farming practices.

That's all well and good, but there's one other huge piece in the factory farm puzzle: Animals on factory farms live in deplorable conditions, and besides being given antibiotics for growth, they are given the drugs because the factory farm environment harbors filth and bacteria. Large numbers of stressed animals packed into tiny, dark, and waste-filled quarters create the diseases that antibiotics are meant to ward off. It's factory farm conditions that really need to change — then farmers wouldn't need to feed animals a steady dose of antibiotics.

We need to get our animals off drugs, but to do that, what is really required is an enforceable food safety law. It's clear that the industry is not going to change on its own with absolutely no incentive to do so. At present, the FDA doesn't even have a time frame to release the final version of the guidelines. Food Safety News reports that the FDA's deputy commissioner, Joshua Sharfstein, said that the FDA intends for the food industry to voluntarily adopt these practices to save the FDA from creating regulation (read: save the FDA the trouble of doing its job).

Guidelines are a laughable solution to livestock's serious drug addiction. Sign our petition to the FDA insisting that the agency implement real regulations on antibiotic use. To protect America's farm animals and consumers, we need new antibiotic limits that are enforceable by law.

Photo credit: aaron13251 via Flickr