Drugmakers reported the sale or distribution of 15.4 million kg of antibiotics for use in cattle, hogs and poultry last year, up 4 percent from 2013, said the FDA in an annual report. The increase was slightly smaller than average and the sale of medically important antibiotics rose 3 percent. The drug data covered the first year of an FDA drive to end the use of medically important antibiotics as a growth promotant in food-bearing animals. The Keep Antibiotics Working coalition said the figures belied “industry claims to be scaling back on use.”
“Sales of medically important antibiotics went up by 23 percent over the past 5 years of which we have data, while animal production did not,” said the coalition of consumer, health, environmental and animal welfare groups. “FDA must set clear targets for the reduction in antibiotic use. Otherwise, industry will continue to conduct business as usual, while the crisis of resistance continues to loom large and consumers pay the price.”
The bulk of antibiotic sales are for livestock use. With the emergence of bacteria resistant to antimicrobials, the government has encouraged judicious use of antibiotics in agriculture and medicine as a way to preserve the effectiveness of the drugs to treat disease in humans.
The FDA said drug companies have agreed to stop marketing medically important antibiotics for sub-therapeutic use. In a statement, the agency said 32 applications have been completely withdrawn and it “expects that drug sponsors will complete the remaining changes before January 2017,” the end of the three-year phase-out. At that point, medically important antibiotics will be available only under supervision of a veterinarian to prevent or treat disease. The Animal Health Institute, a trade group, said in mid-November that “all 26 companies marketing products affected by this policy pledged cooperation with FDA in early 2014.”
Sales and distribution figures “do not necessarily represent actual use of products,” the FDA cautioned. The government is considering ways to track antibiotic use among the major species of food animals and antibiotic use on the farm.
In 2014, medically important antimicrobials accounted for 62 percent of domestic sales and distribution of all antimicrobials. Tetracycles were 70 percent of the sales of medically important antibiotics at 6.6 million kg. Next largest were penicillins, at 885,975 kg. Ionophores accounted for the lion’s share of antibiotics that are not medically important, at 4.7 million kg.
California will be the first state to regulate antibiotic use in food animals under a law signed by Gov. Jerry Brown in October. The law is stricter than the FDA’s ongoing phase-out of medically important antibiotics to fatten animals but it won’t come into play as soon. The state ban would take effect at the start of 2018. California would go farther than the FDA by limiting use of those drugs for disease prevention and by monitoring sales and use of the drugs.
Earlier this week, a report commissioned by the British prime minister said agricultural use of antibiotics “is fueling drug resistance and must be cut back or even banned where they are important for humans,” said the Guardian.