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OSPIRG Pushes Bill to Ban Non-Medical Use of Antibiotics in Farm Animals

The Oregon State Public Interest Research Group thinks Oregon may be fertile ground to step in where federal legislation failed to pass and stop a public health catastrophe as the routine use of antibiotics in livestock reduces the ability for the medicine to fight bacterial infections.
January 15, 2015

Antibiotics are rapidly losing their effectiveness, and the chief culprit is not in any clinic but in the barnyard, where the medicines are mixed in the feed of healthy chickens, hogs and cattle.

Sometimes they’re used because the animals get sick; more often they’re used (improperly) to ward off illnesses, which also allows the animals to be raised in less sanitary conditions; often the antibiotic use doesn’t have any medical need at all -- it just makes the animals grow faster and bigger.

A full 70% of antibiotics sold in the United States are for use in farm animals, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. At the same time, 85% of physicians in a random sample queried by the Consumer Reports National Research Center reported that they had a patient with a multi-drug-resistant bacterial infection in the past year, and 35% of those had a patient who died from the illness.

“Medical authorities at the World Health Organization and the Centers for Disease Control are warning us that if we don’t control the misuse of antibiotics we may lose the ability to use them to treat disease,” said Dave Rosenfield, the executive director of the Oregon State Public Interest Research Group. “It’s an urgent public health issue.”

OSPIRG is willing to gamble that Oregon could be a leader in reining in the misuse of antibiotics for farm animals and prolong the days that common antibiotics will be reliable for treating bacterial infections in humans.

“The federal government has been slow to react,” said Rosenfeld. “The states are going to have to take the lead. Medical authorities have been sounding the alarm for some time.”

With expanded majorities for Democrats in both chambers, the 2015 session will put to the test whether Oregon can get out in front of other states on such issues.

House Bill 2598 is modeled after federal legislation introduced by Rep. Louise Slaughter, D-N.Y., which would ban the use of antibiotics in farm animals except when prescribed by a veterinarian to treat infections and outbreaks of sickness. It’s being sponsored by Rep. Peter Buckley, D-Ashland, and has the support of both health committee chairs -- Sen. Laurie Monnes Anderson, D-Gresham and Rep. Mitch Greenlick, D-Portland.

The American Medical Association supported Slaughter’s bill, but she couldn’t get it through Congress. Instead, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration under President Obama used its authority to ask pharmaceutical companies to stop marketing antibiotics as a way to promote animal growth.

Both Rosenfeld and Slaughter believe the FDA protections don’t go far enough; not only are they voluntary, but they still allow agribusinesses to have unrestricted access to antibiotics as long as they are prescribed under the guise of preventing infections, which only helps antibiotics lose their effectiveness when an actual disease outbreak hits.

Rosenfeld said their bill had won the support of the Oregon Nurses Association, and was working on an endorsement by the Oregon Medical Association. He said they had also begun reaching out to the affected agricultural interests, including the Oregon Cattlemen’s Association.

The Oregon bill is focused solely on poultry, swine and cattle, and requires the disclosure of antibiotic use at factory farms. A clause in the bill allows citizens to sue when they have evidence the law has been violated, but prevents them from collecting damages.

Chris can be reached at [email protected].

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