House Repugs Never Met a Human-American They Wouldn't Screw

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Two important bills to protect Americans from this public health catastrophe have been introduced in Congress, but Republican members of the US House, beholden to the most powerful food lobbyists and corporations like Monsanto, Tysons, Dow Chemical, and the Grocery Manufacturers Association, won't allow a vote on these critical bills.

These two pieces of legislation -- The Preservation of Antibiotics for Medical Treatment Act (PAMPTA) and the Preventing Antibiotic Resistance Act (PARA) -- would stem the use of antibiotic treatment in factory farms and help prevent the problem from getting even worse.

https://www.credomobilize.com/petitions/tell-congressional-republicans-stop-the-use-of-antibiotics-in-factory-farms?akid=11267.2603534.Ly54_r&rd=1&suppress_one_click=true&t=3Corporate

corporate profits trump human, environmental health ALWAYS

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Ruling on FDA’s Oversight of Animal Antibiotic Use Called a ‘Big Blow to Public Health’

In a 2-1 decision, the U.S. Second Circuit Court of Appeals in New York ruled Thursday that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration is not required to hold hearings concerning the safety of feeding antibiotics at subtherapeutic levels.

The ruling (http://docs.nrdc.org/health/files/hea_14072401a.pdf) overturns two district court rulings from 2012 in a caseinitially filed in 2011 by the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), the Center for Science in the Public Interest, Food Animal Concerns Trust, Public Citizen, and the Union of Concerned Scientists.

The groups argue that FDA is required by statute to hold hearings to determine whether to withdraw approval for the use of penicillin and tetracyclines in animal feed after the agency declared that the
subtherapeutic use of the drugs in animal feed “ha[s] not been shown to be safe” in the late 1970s.

Such hearings would be a requirement for industry to prove that the use of these drugs as approved is safe.

“If they were not able to do that, then FDA would have to proceed with withdrawing the approvals for those drugs, which would effectively ban those drugs in animals for food production,” said Keeve Nachman, a scientist at the Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future.

NRDC says that not requiring hearings means FDA “does not have to consider banning” the practice of feeding antibiotics to healthy animals.

“The science was there in 1977 and 40 years later, it’s only gotten stronger that these low-dose, routine use of antibiotics on livestock is causing development of antibiotic-resistant bacteria and that bacteria is coming off the farm in many different ways and affecting humans,” said Mae Wu, an attorney with NRDC’s health program.

“Today’s decision allows the FDA to openly declare that a particular animal drug is unsafe, but then refuse to withdraw approval of that drug,” wrote Judge Robert Katzmann in his dissent (http://docs.nrdc.org/health/files/hea_14072401b.pdf). “It also gives the agency discretion to effectively ignore a public petition asking it to withdraw approval from an unsafe drug. I do not believe the statutory scheme can be read to permit those results.”

http://www.foodsafetynews.com/2014/07/appeals-court-rules-fda-not-required-to-hold-hearings-on-animal-antibiotic-use/#.U9k9tfldWyU

BigAg, BigPharma win again, yawn.

Human-Americans lose, 20K+ dying every year from antibiotic-resistant infections.