Curb Antibiotic Use in Animals?
Pro:
The Food and Drug Administration is sufficiently concerned that it issued a detailed, 19-page “draft guidance” last month that calls on the agriculture industry to voluntarily end the “injudicious” use of drugs to help animals grow…
The FDA says 30 years of studies point unmistakably to a hazard from overuse of antibiotics in animals…
Con side below the fold.
Con:
According to top scientists with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Institutes of Health, there are no scientific studies linking antibiotic use in livestock production with antibiotic resistance in people. In one survey, the results of which were published in the Journal of Antimicrobial Chemotherapy, experts estimated that 96% of human antibiotic resistance occurs because of human uses of antibiotics. A 2006 report from the Institute of Food Technologists concluded: “Eliminating antibiotic drugs from food-animal production may have little positive effect on resistant bacteria that threaten human health.”
Part of the problem with development of new antibiotics is the same problem that inhibits other classes of drug development. The FDA is requiring larger and larger trials as a prerequisite for drug approval. Due to the immense cost of getting a drug approved, drug makers prefer to invest research & development funds into chronic diseases that afflict million of people.
Looks like this threat is overblown.
I think there are externalities here that need to be taken seriouly.
Joe, what are those externalities?