'Swift' FDA action urged after court calls for limiting antibiotic use on farms

By Julian Pecquet - 03/23/12 02:57 PM ET

Rep. Louise Slaughter (D-N.Y.) and an array of consumer groups urged quick action after a federal court ruled that the Food and Drug Administration must start withdrawing approval for the use of unsafe antibiotics in animal agriculture.

"The FDA has been dragging its feet on this for 35 years," Slaughter said in a statement Friday. "We've all known that this is a public health issue for quite some time. … I'm pleased to finally see some progress, and I can only hope that we see swift action from the FDA on this looming crisis."

The drug and agriculture industries say feeding antibiotics to animals that aren't sick keeps them healthy and protects consumers. Critics of the practice say it risks making life-saving medicines less effective, an opinion New York Magistrate Judge Theodore Katz appeared to share Thursday.

"Research has shown that the use of antibiotics in livestock leads to the development of antibiotic-resistant bacteria that can be — and has been — transferred from animals to humans through direct contact, environmental exposure and the consumption and handling of contaminated meat and poultry products," Katz wrote.

Steven Roach, the public health program director at Food Animal Concerns Trust, called the court order "a great victory for public health."

"After decades of delay, the FDA finally will be forced to act on two of the major antibiotics in livestock feeds," he said in a statement. "The court made clear that voluntary action by drug companies is no substitute for FDA fulfilling its mandate to withdraw from the market drugs that have [been] found to be unsafe."

The federal agency is expected to issue formal guidance next week on restricting antibiotic use in healthy animals. Like the initial guidance announced two years ago, the new guidance is expected to still rely on voluntary compliance by farmers and ranchers.

The court ruled in a lawsuit against the FDA filed last May by the National Resources Defense Council and three other member groups of Keep Antibiotics Working: the Center for Science in the Public Interest, the Food Animal Concerns Trust and the Union of Concerned Scientists.