Producers are scrapping use of antibiotics. Time to relax?
Diners delving into a plate of chicken marsala rarely imagine the meal will make them sick. And unless the poultry is dreadfully undercooked, they're probably right-- in the short run. But over the longer haul, they've had good reason to regard poultry as a health threat: For years, America's chicken farmers have been fattening their flocks on feed laced with antibiotics -- even though the practice is known to accelerate the development of antibiotic resistance in humans as well as animals. Activists have been pressing poultry producers to kick the drug habit for years, and the industry is at last responding.
It's an impressive development, the sort that industry rarely makes without a shove from government. Antibiotic use has long been a mainstay of the chicken business, promoting growth even in today's packed poultry lots, making chicken the cheapest meat on the market. But the World Health Organization and the American Medical Association have been urging a change since the 1990s, and recently big buyers have turned up the heat. Late last year, McDonald's announced it would no longer buy from suppliers who used antibiotics for growth promotion; several other large food companies have followed suit.
Anticipating such a nudge, the poultry industry is scrambling toward a drug-free future. Tyson Foods, the nation's top chicken producer, has reportedly cut its antibiotic use by 93 percent since 1997. These days, Tyson's leaders say, they use antibiotics on only 1 percent of the 2.27 billion chickens they raise each year -- and then only to handle diagnosed disease. Three others among the top 10 poultry producers have similarly reduced their antibiotic use. The upshot is a drop of more than 2 million pounds of antibiotics valuable to humans -- nearly 90 percent of the previous total -- in a little more than half a decade.
The poultry industry should be cheered for taking this leap and for doing it before government stepped in.
But the willingness of many to act on their own shouldn't deter government from further oversight. Antibiotic use in poultry and many other animals isn't supervised at all now. For that matter, the success by Tyson and other poultry producers can only be acclaimed because so many watchdogs have been at hand to witness it.
A far wiser course is to oblige all animal producers to play on the same field by imposing rules all must follow. That's the goal of the Preservation of Antibiotics for Medical Treatment Act sponsored by Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, and Rep. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio. Congress shouldn't hesitate a moment to pass it. The bill calls for phasing out antibiotics in animal feed unless the Food and Drug Administration determines that a certain use is appropriate and safe for humans. It would assure that the use of drugs in raising animals is transparent and enforceable, and that food makers remain accountable for securing human health. These goals, of course, are the FDA's reason for being. Though it's heartening that poultry makers are racing ahead of the agency's aspirations, that shouldn't remain the case for long.Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune
