When patients go to doctors with a lingering cold or the like these days, they are much less likely to receive an antibiotic prescription. The public and the medical profession are doing their parts to slow the growth of antibiotic-resistant germs.
With those changes and the rising threat of MRSA infections, it's hard to understand the federal government's hesitance about more serious controls on farm usage of antibiotics.
Health, science and environmental groups in the Keep Antibiotics Working coalition last week wrote to the Food and Drug Administration urging stronger steps. The group noted that European research shows swine farms routinely using antibiotics are more likely to have MRSA infections in their pigs. MRSA infections there have been shown to spread among farmers, veterinarians and hospital staff treating farm-infected patients. Among other things, the coalition asked the FDA to determine whether U.S. livestock carry MRSA and whether drug usage on farms here is increasing the public's MRSA risks. The FDA should engage seriously in heading off a MRSA connection to farms here.
Drug makers continue to want to expand the types of antibiotics allowed for farm usage. That's the wrong direction to go. In Congress, the Preservation of Antibiotics for Medical Treatment bill would phase out the usage in animal feed of antibiotics critical to human health over two years. To people hacking their way through colds to preserve the effectiveness of life-saving drugs, the bill would seem as basic as getting plenty of rest.Seattle Post Intelligencer
