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Animal health expert slams media over antibiotic report
Story Date: 7/24/2012
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Source: Michael Fielding, MEATINGPLACE, 7/24/12
In the wake of a national poll conducted by Consumer Reports that found that a majority of Americans want their supermarkets to sell antibiotic-free meat, associations representing poultry, meat and related animal agricultural groups have decried the findings and defended the industry’s use of antibiotics.
Consumers Union, the public policy and advocacy arm of Consumer Reports, has been using the report — “Meat On Drugs: The Overuse of Antibiotics in Food Animals and What Supermarkets and Consumers Can Do to Stop It” — to support a new advocacy campaign urging supermarkets to sell only meat raised without antibiotics.
Earlier this month, 17 industry groups sent a letter to Congress disputing the report. “We do not believe it serves the consumer to stigmatize certain production systems to boost others,” the groups wrote in a letter to the leaders of the House and Senate agriculture committees. “Blanket actions to restrict antibiotic use would actually make our food system less safe, limit our ability to prevent, control and treat disease and hurt countless animals.”
Ron Phillips, vice president of legislative and public affairs for the Washington, D.C.-based Animal Health Institute, talked with Meatingplace about everything from the eventual elimination of all subtherapeutic use of animal antibiotics to the “buy organic” trend.
Consumers Union’s 2005 report showed there was no microbiological difference between conventional and organic chicken, so why the push to get people to buy organic?
PHILLIPS: Good question. I don’t know. We do believe that consumers should have choices in the food marketplace and that they also need accurate information on which to base those choices. Inferences that there are safety differences among production systems are not based in fact. The literature shows that all types of production systems come with their own sets of challenges and producers and processors work hard to ensure that all meat — no matter what the production system — is safe.
Since FDA has already announced a process to eliminate all subtherapeutic use of animal antibiotics and to extend veterinary oversight of the administration, is that a good start to addressing this use, or does more need to be done?
PHILLIPS: It is a significant and far-reaching action. It also fully implements a request sent to the White House in 2009 by several public health and consumer groups asking for exactly what FDA is implementing — veterinary oversight and elimination of subtherapeutic uses for those antibiotics that are also used in human medicine. The story overlooked by the media is the widespread agreement with the FDA action.
While FDA should and will continue monitoring for antibiotic resistance that may come from animals, further actions must be grounded in scientific data. To date, actions taken by some governments have had unintended consequences for animal health while not improving human health.
To some degree, antibiotics still are found in meat, but it's less common than people would think. What responsibility do the media have in setting the record straight and avoiding making the situation worse?
PHILLIPS: The FDA has set protective limits for antibiotic residues in meat, and the USDA routinely monitors to ensure those limits are not violated. So it’s safe to say residues are not a significant public health problem. The media have indeed made the situation worse by confusing the possible transfer of antibiotic resistant bacteria with the issue of antibiotic residues. We regularly see stories referring to “antibiotics in meat” although this is simply not the case. The media have fallen woefully short in their responsibility to inform consumers about the safety factors in the food supply.
You say that there is insufficient data in the report for Consumers Union to make the claims it makes within the report. Can you elaborate?
PHILLIPS: I don’t say it. FDA says it. I believe this refers to the claim about 80 percent of antibiotics used in animals, [for] which FDA says there is no basis for making that claim. We don’t have human and animal data that is comparable, and veterinary medicine and human medicine are different.
Processors that sell meat from animals that are not given antibiotics do not withhold antibiotics from sick animals. They just pull them out of the group they are going to slaughter for antibiotic-free meat and treat them. Then they sell them or their meat elsewhere. So why are activist groups and the media criticizing the industry?
PHILLIPS: Again, good question, I wish I knew the answer. Treating sick animals is the humane thing to do. That’s why we say that different production systems are often interdependent … a successful and profitable antibiotic-free line requires a successful traditional line.
For more stories, go to http://www.meatingplace.com/.
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