Dr. Margaret A. Hamburg
Commissioner
U.S. Food and Drug Administration
10903 New Hampshire Avenue
Silver Spring, MD 20993-0002
Dr. Joshua M. Sharfstein
Principal Deputy Commissioner
U.S. Food and Drug Administration
10903 New Hampshire Avenue
Silver Spring, MD 20993-0002
Dear Commissioner Hamburg and Principal Deputy Commissioner Sharfstein:
The Pew Campaign on Human Health and Industrial Farming (Pew) would like to extend our sincere thanks to you both for taking the time to meet with us on June 23 to discuss the contribution of animal agriculture to the growing public health crisis of antimicrobial resistance. We are deeply appreciative not only of your consideration of our viewpoints, but also the expertise and dedication that you bring to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
Pew was very pleased to learn at the recent House Rules Committee hearing on the Preservation of Antibiotics for Medical Treatment Act (PAMTA) that under your leadership, FDA now publicly recognizes the contribution to human drug resistance of nontherapeutic antimicrobial use in food animal production, and that the agency is in the process of formulating a new and long-overdue policy seeking to reduce the use of human antimicrobials in food animals. We are eager to work with you and your staff to help craft a policy that best protects public health while minimizing costs to the animal agriculture industry. We would appreciate the opportunity to meet with you again to discuss and make recommendations regarding the details of such a policy, and would like to bring with us experts from the fields of human and animal medicine and animal agriculture to answer any technical questions that may arise.
Pew thoroughly supports the agency’s intent to end the use of antimicrobials for growth promotion and feed efficiency in food animals in the United States. We agree that feeding livestock and poultry vital human antibiotics and related drugs simply to ease and speed production is not a judicious use of these important drugs. We also agree that such uses do not, as Dr. Sharfstein stated in testimony, advance animal or human health, and that ending these uses will not compromise the safety of food.
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 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 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 infoCopyright(c) 1996-2012 The Pew Charitable Trusts. All Rights Reserved.
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