Guidelines on farmyard antibiotics are 'make-believe'

Peter Aldhous, San Francisco bureau chief
Is it "sweeping action" or a "make-believe solution"? Opinions are divided on the US Food and Drug Administration's long-awaited moves to restrict the routine treatment of farm livestock with antibiotics to promote growth and prevent disease - a practice blamed for promoting bacterial resistance to drugs crucial for treating human infections.

On 11 April, the FDA released three documents intended to promote the "judicious use"?of antibiotics on farms. The goal is to phase out the drugs' use merely to promote livestock growth, and to have veterinarians oversee their use to prevent disease.
What would that mean in practice? The FDA's FAQ has this to say:

For example, if a veterinarian determines ... that a group of weaned beef calves arriving at a feedlot in bad weather after a lengthy transport is likely to develop an infection, preventively treating this group with an antimicrobial approved for prevention of that bacterial infection would be considered a judicious use. On the other hand, FDA would not consider administration of a drug to apparently healthy animals in the absence of any information that such animals were at risk of a specific disease to be a judicious use for prevention.

The moves were welcomed by Laura Rogers, director of the Pew Campaign on Human Health and Industrial Farming, in a statement emailed to reporters:

FDA has taken an important step to help protect the public's health from antibiotic-resistant bacteria linked to the overuse of antibiotics in animal agriculture. This is the most sweeping action the agency has undertaken in this area, as this covers all antibiotics used in meat and poultry production that are important to human health.

But critics argue that a voluntary scheme will be toothless, adding little to guidance that has existed in draft form since 2010. In a scathing blog post, Avinash Kar, a San Francisco-based attorney with the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), concluded:
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FDA's guidance will not help solve the problem because the guidance has no binding force: it is still entirely up to the livestock industry to decide whether to follow the recommendations or ignore them.

The NRDC is one of several groups that in 2011 sued the FDA?for its failure to follow up on proposals dating from 1977 to restrict the use of penicillin and tetracyclines in animal feed. Last month, a federal judge ruled that the FDA must revisit these plans. In continuing to push forward with voluntary guidance, Kar argues that the agency is failing to meet its "legal obligation" under the ruling.

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