Despite steadfast opposition as well as political uncertainties within the U.S. Congress, there were renewed signs last July of forward momentum for H.R. 1549, the Preservation of Antibiotics for Medical Treatment Act (PAMTA). Moreover, top officials of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) signaled, in part through their "public health approach" to agency business, that further restricting nontherapeutic agricultural uses of antibiotics is warranted. This new momentum was evident during a hearing before the U.S. House of Representatives Rules Committee, which was convened in July by chairwoman Representative Louise Slaughter (D-N.Y.), the only microbiologist in the U.S. Congress, who is keenly interested in public health issues-enough so to bring such matters before the Rules Committee, which typically focuses on parliamentary procedures.
 
"We cannot afford for our medicines to become obsolete," Slaughter says. "As a microbiologist, I cannot stress the urgency of this problem enough." In particular, seven classes of antibiotics-penicillin, tetracyclines, macrolides, lincosamides, streptogramins, aminoglycosides, and sulfonamides-that FDA deems to be "highly" or "critically" important in human medicine continue to be used for nonmedical purposes in agriculture, she points out.

"Despite their importance in human medicine, these drugs are added to animal feed as growth promotants and for routine disease prevention," Slaughter continues. "Although the FDA could withdraw its approval for these antibiotics, its record of reviewing currently approved drugs under existing procedures indicates that it would take nearly a century to get these medically important antibiotics out of the feed given to food animals." PAMTA seeks to phase out their nonmedical use much more quickly.

"FDA supports the idea of H.R. 1549 to phase out growth promotion/feed efficiency uses of antimicrobials in animals," says Joshua Sharfstein, Principal Deputy Commissioner at FDA. "Protecting public health requires the judicious use in animal agriculture of those antimicrobials of importance in human medicine. To avoid unnecessary development of resistance under conditions of constant exposure-growth promotion/ feed efficiency-to antibiotics, the use of antimicrobials should be limited to those situations where human and animal health are protected." However, he notes, "Legislation should permit the judicious use of antimicrobials in animals for prevention and control."

"The present system of producing food animals in the United States is not sustainable and presents an unacceptable level of risk to public health, damage to the environment, as well as unnecessary harm to the animals we raise for food," says Robert P. Martin, a senior officer at The Pew Environment Group in Washington, D.C., who cited a 2008 report from the Pew Commission on Industrial Farm Animal Production when he testified before the House Rules Committee. "The Commission was so concerned about the indiscriminate use of antibiotics in food animal production, and the potential threat to public health, that five of those recommendations deal with antibiotic use, [including] . . . a call for the end of the nontherapeutic use of antibiotics in food animal production and strict definitions for their use.

"It is important to note that the Pew Commission never advocated ending all antibiotic use in food animal production," Martin continues. "Such a recommendation would be irresponsible. We did seek to maintain the effectiveness of antibiotics to treat sick animals by limiting the routine use. The increase in bacterial antibiotic resistance, and the inappropriate use in food animal production, is a serious-if silent-threat to our public health."

"Regular antibiotic use in food animal production is an unnecessary public health risk and a crutch for improper animal husbandry practices," says microbiologist Lance Price, director of the Center for Metagenomics and Human Health at the Translational Genomics Research Institute in Phoenix, Ariz., who also testified during the July hearing. "Until there is legislation to prevent unnecessary use of antibiotics, then most producers will continue to use antibiotics to patch their outdated practices. [PAMTA] is a solid first step towards curbing unnecessary antibiotic use in food animal production."

Jeffrey L. Fox