(which according to its website is to :
protect the public health by assuring that foods are safe, wholesome, sanitary and properly labeled; human and veterinary drugs, and vaccines and other biological products and medical devices intended for human use are safe and effective)
Even though the FDA has known for decades that giving human antibiotics to healthy animals can create monster bacteria that threaten human health they have done nothing.
(nada)
Antibiotics are obviously a good thing and have saved us from diseases that were once death sentence. But now, multi-drug resistant infections are on the rise at the same time the development of new antibiotics, due to cost constraints, are at an all-time low.
70% of all antibiotics in the U.S. are being wasted on healthy cows, pigs and chickens for things like growth promotion (!) creating drug-resistant superbugs that put everyone at risk.
We all know by now not to take and not to give our children unnecessary antibiotics and our doctors carefully weigh their options before prescribing them to us, but The National Academy of Sciences has stated:
"a decrease in the inappropriate use of antimicrobials in human medicine alone is not enough. Substantial efforts must be made to decrease inappropriate overuse of antimicrobials in animals and agriculture as well."
All 27 member states of the European Union have banned the use of important human antibiotics for growth promotion in animals. Hundreds of the world's leading consumer and public health agencies have demanded this practice come to an end.
Here is the petition we can sign to ask FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg to ban the use of antibiotics in healthy animals. I can't believe after so many years we are still talking about this issue and nothing has been done- hopefully this lawsuit will have some real teeth in it.
