"An old saying goes, you don't miss your water till your well runs dry. When it comes to antibiotics, we're not only running out of water but there are no rain clouds on the horizon. The overuse and underdevelopment of these drugs have brought us close to the brink of a world without cures for deadly infections. Fortunately, regulators, lawmakers, businesses and health professionals are taking steps to walk us back from the edge.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration recently took action to curb the use of antibiotics to promote growth in food animals."
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"Yet even if agricultural misuse of antibiotics ended tomorrow, our proverbial well would still run dry, just more slowly. The next challenge is for the world's best and brightest — in business, medicine, government, and academia — to replenish our medicine chests with the next generation of antibiotics."
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"Bacteria are genetically nimble, but humans are smarter. Not only can we develop better ways to produce meat and poultry without abusing antibiotics, we can and must marshal our resources to develop new drugs that will keep humanity ahead of the next generations of life-threatening superbugs."
Rebecca W. Rimel is president and chief executive officer of The Pew Charitable Trusts.
This bibliography lists the latest published scientific and economic literature concerning the contribution of routine antibiotic use in food animals to the growing public health crisis of human antibiotic resistance. Research on how antibiotic use in food animal production contributes to the growing health crisis of antibiotic resistance dates back more than 30 years.
More infoAs multidrug-resistant infections have grown more prevalent, few new antibiotics are reaching the market. This is attributed, in part, to the economic and regulatory challenges associated with their development. Recently, stakeholders have endorsed a novel regulatory pathway to approve these lifesaving drugs for use in limited patient populations — namely those at highest risk and with few or no other options.
More info"All over the region, little pockets of activity are coalescing into a collaborative Food Revolution a la Jamie Oliver, the British chef who champions healthier food in schools and elsewhere. Last fall at the One Young World conference held here, he challenged Pittsburgh to revamp its eating habits -- and Pittsburgh's delegates took him seriously."
More info"With childhood obesity — and other health issues and nutrition requirements — increasing in schools, Williamsburg-James City County is focusing on providing nutritious meals to students."
More info''A subsidiary of India's largest pharmaceutical company has agreed to pay a record $500 million in fines and penalties for selling adulterated drugs and lying to federal regulators in a case that is part of an ongoing crackdown on the quality of generic drugs flowing into the U.S."
More info"As differing bills for securing the pharmaceutical supply chain wind their way through the US House and Senate, a key hurdle to passing legislation may have just been cleared. Earlier this week, the National Community Pharmacists Association – which is a member of an influential industry coalition that has been floating its own proposals – is now willing to back either bill."
More info"U.S. senators considering fundamental changes to how the practice of pharmacy compounding is regulated heard almost unanimous support for reform at a Washington committee hearing Thursday."
More info"At least 67 people have died in 20 outbreaks caused by contaminated drugs since 2001, experts told a Senate hearing Thursday. The Food and Drug Administration says there have likely been more cases than that, but they have no way of telling now."
More info"State pharmacy officials on Thursday threw their support behind a proposal giving the Food and Drug Administration authority over large compounding pharmacies, in an effort to head off more outbreaks tied to contaminated medications."
More info"Representatives from National Food Group handed out samples of what could be on next year’s menu. Students sampled beef barbacoa with roasted vegetables, whole grain cheese ravioli with chunky marinara sauce and baked cod filet. Other items were cranberry oatmeal bars and breakfast items oatmeal chocolate vertical bars and berry apple crisp vertical bar."
More infoPew Charitable Trusts today applauded Senators Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), and Susan Collins (R-ME), for introducing the Antimicrobial Data Collection Act, which would require the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, or FDA, to report more information on the annual sales of antibiotics used among industrial farm animals. The bipartisan bill would also give the agency a deadline to finalize policies proposed last year to eliminate the use of antibiotics for growth promotion purposes in meat production.
More infoWhen a doctor sticks a needle in you, you expect that the drugs it carries won’t be tainted. But, possibly owing to a strange gray area in federal law, thousands of patients last October got injections for back pain that contained highly dangerous fungal meningitis, and dozens of them died. Members of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee are now seeking to fix the government’s oversight of the obscure world of compounding pharmacies. The reforms they want are overdue.
More info"As a nation, we need to exercise greater care with our use of antibiotics, in both humans and animals, so that these medications remain effective in treating serious bacterial infections."
More infoJessica Donze Black, director of the Pew Kids' Safe & Healthful Foods Project, speaks with Education Week about a bipartisan bill that would provide money for school kitchen upgrades.
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