Scientists have been saying for years that the indiscriminate use of antibiotics in animal feed is going to have a cost. Now, the toll is being felt.
Earlier this month, the national Centers for Disease Control and Prevention told doctors that they should stop using the class of antibiotics called fluoroquinolones to treat cases of gonorrhea, because so many strains of gonorrhea have become resistant to these drugs.
For a decade, fluoroquinolones were widely used in chicken feed to prevent respiratory problems in poultry flocks. The Food and Drug Administration withdrew its approval for such use in 2005.
But the damage has been done. An entire class of antibiotics has been sacrificed to the convenience of poultry and egg producers, leaving only one class of antibiotics to defend against gonorrhea.
The drug now recommended is ceftriaxone, a member of the family of cephalosporin.
At the same time, the FDA is contemplating approval of an antibiotic called cefquinome for use against respiratory disease in cattle.
Cefquinome also is a cephalosporin. If that family of antibiotics were to be compromised, it would adversely affect medicines that fight meningitis and serious gastrointestinal diseases, as well as serious infections in cancer patients.
The American Medical Association, along with an FDA advisory panel, has recommended against approving cefquinome for cattle. Plenty of other drugs are effective at treating bovine respiratory disease. A class of drugs so important to humans should not be put at risk.
The FDA should not make the same mistake twice.Columbus Dispatch
