growth promotion

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FDA Antimicrobial Resistance Guidelines Fail to Address Root Causes

Last December, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) published two controversial documents on its website: Guidance 213 and the Veterinary Feed Directive (VFD). The guidelines stirred a firestorm of protests from public health offiicials who argue that the guidelines are too weak to prevent the continuing growth of antibiotic resistant germs...the crisis, as outlined by Dr. Joseph Mercola, is that we are now "facing the perfect storm to take us back to the pre-antibiotic age, when some of the most important advances in modern medicine – intensive care, organ transplants, care for premature babies, surgeries and even treatment for many common bacterial infections – will no longer be possible." Read More »

FDA Fails To Protect Against Antibiotic Resistance, Guarantees More Needless Death And Suffering

Joseph Mercola | Mercola.com | April 23, 2014

Antibiotic-resistant bacteria infect two million Americans every year, causing at least 23,000 deaths. Even more die from complications related to the infections, and the numbers are steadily growing. Read More »

FDA Finally Imposes Some Controls On Agricultural Antibiotics. Sort Of.

Maryn McKenna | Wired | December 11, 2013

This morning, the US Food and Drug Administration dropped some long-awaited-but-still-big news regarding the use of antibiotics in meat production. Tl;dr: The FDA asked (but did not compel) the livestock industry to stop using the micro-dose “growth promoter” antibiotics that are widely believed to contribute to increase in antibiotic resistant bacteria in animals, food and humans. Read More »

FDA Scrutinizes Antibacterial Products For Hormonal Disruption, Bacterial Resistance

Maryn McKenna | Wired | December 16, 2013

[...] The FDA has announced that it is formally reconsidering “antibacterial” soaps and other personal-care products, charging that the antibacterial ingredients confer no benefit over regular soap and water while carrying extra risks. Read More »

FDA Takes Significant Steps To Address Antimicrobial Resistance

Press Release | Food and Drug Administration (FDA) | December 11, 2013

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration today is implementing a plan to help phase out the use of medically important antimicrobials in food animals for food production purposes, such as to enhance growth or improve feed efficiency. The plan would also phase in veterinary oversight of the remaining appropriate therapeutic uses of such drugs. Read More »

FDA’s New Antibiotics Guidance Falls Short Of Improving Welfare And Reducing Health Risks From Factory Farming

Press Release | American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA) | December 19, 2013

The U.S. Food & Drug Administration’s release of its long-awaited policy is drawing criticism from a group of leading animal welfare organizations, including The ASPCA® (The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals®), Farm Sanctuary, Animal Welfare Approved, and the Animal Legal Defense Fund. Read More »

FDA’s Step To Limit Animal Antibiotics Symbolic–Animal Husbandry Issues Must Still be Addressed

Ralph Loglisci | Civil Eats | December 13, 2013

In 1977, the [FDA] let everyone know that there was strong evidence that the use of penicillin and tetracycline for anything other than treating disease in livestock, could lead to the development of super bugs strong enough to render the powerful antibiotics useless in people. [...] Now, [the FDA] has finally mustered the courage to approve a strongly worded recommendation for producers to stop using medically important antibiotics as growth promoters and to give veterinarians oversight over therapeutic uses of the life-saving drugs. Read More »

Re-Examining The FDA Antibiotics Decision: Banning Growth Promoters Won’t Be Enough

Maryn McKenna | Wired | December 27, 2013

In my first take on the news of the FDA finalizing its request to agriculture to stop using growth-promoter antibiotics, I promised to come back for a more thoughtful reaction. And then this happened, and this happened, and the holidays happened, and, well, it’s been a busy few weeks. Read More »

Report: FDA Documents Show Decade Of Unsuccessful Attempts To Control Farm Antibiotics

Maryn McKenna | Wired | January 28, 2014

A nonprofit group that has been using the courts to pressure the Food and Drug Administration into exerting more control over farm antibiotic overuse has done a deep review of FDA documents prised loose through Freedom of Information Act requests — and concludes that by allowing the drugs to remain on the market as formulated, the agency isn’t meeting its own internal safety standards. Read More »

Sneak Peek: What The White House Is Thinking About Antibiotic Resistance

Maryn McKenna | Wired | April 4, 2014

The President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST for short) is preparing a major report on the problem of antibiotic resistance. The report won’t be published for a few months, but today PCAST held one of its periodic meetings, and aired what it thinks the most important issues are going to be. [...] Read More »

The Antibiotic Resistance Coalition (ARC)

Press Release | Antibiotic Resistance Coalition (ARC) | May 22, 2014

Act now, or face catastrophic post-antibiotic era Read More »

We're Running Out Of Antibiotics

Nicole Allan | The Atlantic | February 19, 2014

It’s difficult to imagine a world without antibiotics. [...] Yet in 1945, while accepting a Nobel Prize for discovering penicillin, Alexander Fleming warned of a future in which antibiotics had been used with abandon and bacteria had grown resistant to them. Today, this future is imminent. Read More »

Why Antibiotic Makers Aren't Worried About FDA's Livestock Rules

Venessa Wong | Bloomberg Businessweek | December 12, 2013

In a move to alleviate concerns about overuse of antibiotics on farms, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration issued new guidance directing at animal pharmaceutical companies to phase out the use of certain drugs to promote weight gain in animals. But this won’t mean drug-free livestock [...]. Read More »