Most "subtherapeutic" antibiotics are administered to animals on industrial farms via their feed.Photo by KerbenThe Food and Drug Administration (FDA) pulled a Scrooge move just before Christmas. The agency published an entry in the Federal Register declaring that it will end its attempt at mandatory restrictions on the use of antibiotics in animal agriculture. The agency isn't advertising the shift, though: This news would have remained a secret if not for Maryn McKenna's Superbug blog over at Wired. McKenna, who specializes in writing about antibiotics and their link to pathogens, caught the Federal Register notice.
This is a sorry end to a process that began in 1977 (!), but McKenna created an excellent timeline that traces the history of the issue back to the 1950s. In 2009, the Obama administration breathed new life into a moribund process because the top two Obama appointees at the FDA, Commissioner Margaret Hamburg and her then-deputy Joshua Sharfstein, strongly supported restricting antibiotic use in agriculture.
But despite Hamburg and Sharfstein's many supportive statements, the FDA has only produced a draft set of "voluntary" guidelines. And, with this latest announcement, it looks like that's as far as they're willing to go....Please read more from Tom Laskawy: