Slaughter Calls on Farmers to Limits Use of Nontherapeutic Antibiotics

As Prepared:

Thank you everyone for attending this hearing on Preservation of Antibiotics for Medical Treatment Act (PAMTA), which is critically important to preventing our current stock of antibiotics from becoming obsolete.  As a microbiologist, I cannot stress the urgency of this problem enough.

Two million Americans acquire bacterial infections during their hospital stay every year, and 70 percent of their infections will be resistant to the drugs commonly used to treat them. As a result, every day thirty-eight patients in our hospitals will die of those infections.

Sadly, children and infants are particularly susceptible to infections caused by antibiotic resistant bacteria.  For example, Salmonella causes 1.4 million illnesses every year.  Over one-third of all diagnoses occur in children under the age of 10.  Infants under the age of one are 10 times more likely than the general population to acquire a Salmonella infection. 

In 1995, 19 percent of Salmonella strains were found to be multi-drug resistant.  That means that our children are left to undergo multiple treatments for otherwise simple infections because we have allowed traditional treatments to become ineffective.    

And the cost to our already strained health care system is astronomical.  In fact, resistant bacterial infections increase health care costs by $4 billion to $5 billion each year. 

Currently, seven classes of antibiotics certified by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) as "highly" or "critically" important in human medicine are used in agriculture as animal feed additives.  Among them are penicillin, tetracyclines, macrolides, lincosamides, streptogramins, aminoglycosides, and sulfonamides.  These classes of antibiotics are among the most critically important in our arsenal of defense against potentially fatal human diseases.

Penincillins, for example, are used to treat infections ranging from strep throat to meningitis.  Macrolides and Sulfonamides are used to prevent secondary infections in patients with AIDS and to treat pneumonia in HIV-infected patients.  Tetracyclines are used to treat people potentially exposed to anthrax.

Despite their importance in human medicine, these drugs are added to animal feed as growth promotants and for routine disease prevention.  Approximately 70 percent of antibiotics and related drugs produced in the US are given to cattle, pigs, and chicken to promote growth and to compensate for crowded, unsanitary, stressful conditions.  The nontherapeutic use of antibiotics in poultry skyrocketed from 2 million pounds in 1985 to 10.5 million pounds in the late 1990s.

This kind of habitual, nontherapuetic use of antibiotics has been conclusively linked to a growing number of incidents of antimicrobial-resistant infections in humans, and may be contaminating ground water with resistant bacteria in rural areas.  In fact, a National Academy of Sciences report states that, "a decrease in antimicrobial use in human medicine alone will have little effect on the current situation.  Substantial efforts must be made to decrease inappropriate overuse in animals and agriculture as well.” 

Resistant bacteria can be transferred from animals to humans in several ways.  Antibiotic resistant bacteria can be found in the meat and poultry that we purchase in the grocery store.  In fact, a New England Journal of Medicine study conducted in Washington, DC found that 20 percent of the meat sampled was contaminated with Salmonella and 84 percent of those bacteria were resistant to antibiotics used in human medicine and animal agriculture. 

Bacteria can also be transferred from animals to humans via workers in the livestock industry who handle animals, feed, and manure.  Farmers may then transfer the bacteria on to their family. 

A third method is via the environment.  Nearly 2 trillion pounds of manure generated in the US annually contaminate our groundwater, surface water, and soil.  Because this manure contains resistant bacteria, the resistant bacteria can then be passed on to humans that come in contact with the water sources or soil.

And the problem has been well documented.

A 2002 analysis of more than 500 scientific articles and published in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases found that "many lines of evidence link antimicrobial resistant human infections to foodborne pathogens of animal origin."

The Institute of Medicine's 2003 report on Microbial Threats to Health concluded "Clearly, a decrease in the inappropriate use of antimicrobials in human medicine alone is not enough.  Substantial efforts must be made to decrease inappropriate overuse in animals and agriculture as well."

As the impact of MRSA continues to unfold, there is little doubt that antibiotic resistant diseases are a growing public health menace demanding a high priority response.  Despite increased attention to the issue, the response has been inadequate.  Part of the problem has been the FDA's failure to adequately address the effect of the misuse of animal antibiotics on the efficacy of human drugs.

Although the FDA could withdraw its approval for these antibiotics, its record of reviewing currently approved drugs under existing procedures indicate that it would take nearly a century to get these medically important antibiotics out of the feed given to food producing animals.  In October 2000, for example, the FDA began consideration of a proposal to withdraw its approval for the therapeutic use of fluoroquinolones in poultry.  The review, and eventual withdraw of approval, took five years to complete.  Under its regulations, the FDA must review each class of antibiotics separately.

The legislation we are here to discuss today, PAMTA, would phase out the use of the seven classes of medically significant antibiotics that are currently approved for nontherapeutic use in animal agriculture.  Make no mistake, this bill would in no way infringe upon the use of these drugs to treat a sick animal.  It simply proscribes their nontherapuetic use. 

When we go to the grocery store to pick up dinner, we should be able to buy our food without worrying that eating it will expose our family to potentially deadly bacteria that will no longer respond to our medical treatments.  Unless we act now, we will unwittingly be permitting animals to serve as incubators for resistant bacteria.

It is time for Congress to stand with scientists, the World Health Organization, the American Medical Association, and the National Academy of Sciences and do something to address the spread of resistant bacteria.  We cannot afford for our medicines to become obsolete.

Thank you for coming, and I look forward to working with you and all the Members of this Committee, as well as any other interested parties, to enact this bill and protect the integrity of our antibiotics and the health of American families.

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United States House of Representatives
312 The Capitol • Washington, DC 20515
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