Tamar Klaiman, PhD, MPH
Assistant Professor
Jefferson School of Population Health
On December 2, 2010, I attended a seminar presented by the Women’s Health & Environment Network (WHEN) funded by the Pew Charitable Trusts titled “Food, Antibiotics, and Public Health: A Call to Action” held at Thomas Jefferson University. The program incorporated a short film and speakers including Meredith Montalto from the Pew Charitable Trusts, Dianne Moore and Teresa Mendez-Quigley from WHEN. The focus of the seminar was the increasingly routine use of antibiotics in the food chain, particularly among farm animals in industrial farming, and its potential impact on antibiotic resistance.
Large industrial farms use antibiotics prophylactically to reduce disease among food animals living in unsanitary conditions. The impact of such routine antibiotic use is that bacterial strains that cause illnesses, from ear infections to tuberculosis, are becoming resistant to medications.
Learning this reiterated the importance of buying locally grown food from family farms as found in farmer’s markets throughout the country. While there is no guarantee that local food is produced without the routine use of antibiotics, the hope is that small, sustainable farms may not require the use of such drugs because they may implement more humane and safe farming practices such as allowing cows to graze, rotating crops, and letting chickens roam outside of their coops.
The most important message I came away with from this seminar is the need to contact legislators about the importance of antibiotic preservation. Currently, there is a bill entitled “Preservation of Antibiotics for Medical Treatment Act” (PAMTA) (H.R. 1549/S. 619), which would require the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to re-review the approvals it previously issued for animal feed uses of the seven classes of antibiotics that are important to human medicine. Any drugs found to be unsafe from a resistance point of view will have their approvals rescinded.
This bill has support from numerous health organizations such as the American Public Health Association, American Medical Association, and the Union of Concerned Scientists; however, the lame duck Congress may not vote on the bill, requiring the writing of an entirely new bill in the next Congressional session.
If you are interested in learning more about this bill, or signing on to support it, please click here.