Officials from the FDA, USDA and CDC will hear public comments on Wednesday on a proposal to collect, for the first time, data on how many pounds of antimicrobials are consumed by each of the major species of food animals – cattle, hogs and poultry. Until now, the FDA has collected information on total sales of antibiotics for livestock use. The additional detail, the FDA says, will help it “further target its efforts to ensure judicious use of medically important antimicrobials.”
The agency is mid-way through a three-year phase-out of the use of medically important antibiotics to promote weight gain among food animals. After December 2016, the medicines will only be available for treatment or prevention of disease in livestock under supervision of a veterinarian. The phase-out is part of a government-wide drive to preserve the effectiveness of antibiotics for treating humans and a response to the emergence of antibiotic-resistant bacteria, and to develop new antimicrobials and alternative treatments for disease. Agriculture is the largest consumer of antibiotics.
The newly created Presidential Advisory Council on Combating Antibiotic-Resistant Bacteria is to hold its inaugural meeting today at HHS headquarters. The 15-member council “will provide advice, information, and recommendations” on how to reduce occurrence of resistant bacteria,” says HHS.
The activist group Keep Antibiotics Working says the administration should move more rapidly to curtail use of antibiotics in livestock production. “There’s been zero progress” and “no concrete proposals,” it says, for gathering data on antibiotics given to cattle, hogs and poultry. The group also advocates “hard targets for reducing antibiotic use in livestock.”
Acting FDA commissioner Stephen Ostroff and USDA chief veterinarian John Clifford are scheduled to open the all-day public meeting at USDA headquarters. The agenda calls for a review of FDA and USDA work in the past on collection of antibiotic data and a discussion of a handful of USDA proposals for additional studies. Among the hurdles for data collection are how to assure cooperation by producers and confidentiality of the information.