animal agriculture
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FDA Antimicrobial Resistance Guidelines Fail to Address Root Causes
Last December, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) published two controversial documents on its website: Guidance 213 and the Veterinary Feed Directive (VFD). The guidelines stirred a firestorm of protests from public health offiicials who argue that the guidelines are too weak to prevent the continuing growth of antibiotic resistant germs...the crisis, as outlined by Dr. Joseph Mercola, is that we are now "facing the perfect storm to take us back to the pre-antibiotic age, when some of the most important advances in modern medicine – intensive care, organ transplants, care for premature babies, surgeries and even treatment for many common bacterial infections – will no longer be possible." Read More »
FDA Fails To Protect Against Antibiotic Resistance, Guarantees More Needless Death And Suffering
Antibiotic-resistant bacteria infect two million Americans every year, causing at least 23,000 deaths. Even more die from complications related to the infections, and the numbers are steadily growing. Read More »
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FDA Finally Imposes Some Controls On Agricultural Antibiotics. Sort Of.
This morning, the US Food and Drug Administration dropped some long-awaited-but-still-big news regarding the use of antibiotics in meat production. Tl;dr: The FDA asked (but did not compel) the livestock industry to stop using the micro-dose “growth promoter” antibiotics that are widely believed to contribute to increase in antibiotic resistant bacteria in animals, food and humans. Read More »
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FDA’s Step To Limit Animal Antibiotics Symbolic–Animal Husbandry Issues Must Still be Addressed
In 1977, the [FDA] let everyone know that there was strong evidence that the use of penicillin and tetracycline for anything other than treating disease in livestock, could lead to the development of super bugs strong enough to render the powerful antibiotics useless in people. [...] Now, [the FDA] has finally mustered the courage to approve a strongly worded recommendation for producers to stop using medically important antibiotics as growth promoters and to give veterinarians oversight over therapeutic uses of the life-saving drugs. Read More »
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Re-Examining The FDA Antibiotics Decision: Banning Growth Promoters Won’t Be Enough
In my first take on the news of the FDA finalizing its request to agriculture to stop using growth-promoter antibiotics, I promised to come back for a more thoughtful reaction. And then this happened, and this happened, and the holidays happened, and, well, it’s been a busy few weeks. Read More »
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Report: FDA Documents Show Decade Of Unsuccessful Attempts To Control Farm Antibiotics
A nonprofit group that has been using the courts to pressure the Food and Drug Administration into exerting more control over farm antibiotic overuse has done a deep review of FDA documents prised loose through Freedom of Information Act requests — and concludes that by allowing the drugs to remain on the market as formulated, the agency isn’t meeting its own internal safety standards. Read More »
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Sneak Peek: What The White House Is Thinking About Antibiotic Resistance
The President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST for short) is preparing a major report on the problem of antibiotic resistance. The report won’t be published for a few months, but today PCAST held one of its periodic meetings, and aired what it thinks the most important issues are going to be. [...] Read More »
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The Wrongheaded Law That's Making Your Food Less Safe
If the cows providing your milk were being drugged up and abused, you'd want to know, right? Late last month, Idaho Gov. C.L. "Butch" Otter signed into law a measure that makes it a crime, punishable by up to a year in prison, for someone not authorized to be in an "agricultural production facility" to "make audio or video recordings of the conduct" inside that facility. [...] Read More »
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World Health Organization: No, Seriously, Stop Abusing Antibiotics
In a consciously alarming report today, the agency said, "Without urgent action, we are heading for a post-antibiotic era, in which common infections and minor injuries can once again kill." Read More »
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