—Lancaster Farming, Saturday, May 7. 1977
94
Antibiotic restrictions
PRINCETON, N.J. - U. S.
Food and Drug Ad
ministration proposals to
severely restrict feed-use
antibiotics pose a serious
threat to America’s livestock
industry and hence to food
supplies and prices at the
consumer level, according to
American Cyanamid
Company.
FDA Commissioner
Donald Kennedy announced
at a press conference in
Washington on April 20 that
be would move to restrict the
use of penicillin and
tetracycline antibiotics in
livestock and poultry feeds
for disease prevention,
putting them on veterinary
prescription only for
treatment of disease.
The new Commissioner’s
decision, first disclosed at a
Early warning .system
set up for
WASHINGTON, D.C. -
Plant pests invading the
United States will be less
likely to become established
because of a new .early
warning system to find them
promptly and take rapid
action against them, the U.S.
Department of Agriculture
announced last week.
The warning system,
called “Project Pest Alert,”
establishes a 1200-mile
detection belt around 16
major ports of entry that
stand a high risk for offering
a foothold to foreign plant
pests. USDA’s Animal Plant
Health Inspection Service
(APHIS) plans to expand the
project to 39 locations within
three years.
Specially trained APHIS
inspectors will
systematically survey about
1000 locations in each
detection belt. The goal is
to find invading plant pests
quickly so that they can be
eradicated before they do
real damage to American
crops and gardens. In
spections will concentrate on
major foreign insects,
nematodes, snails, and slugs
that attack home vegetable
gardens and farm crops-like
corn, small grains, forage,
soybeans, and citrus.
Project Pest Alert
backstops the continuing
aphis inspection of incoming
vehicles, freight and
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meeting of the National
Advisory Food and Drug
Committee (NAFDC) on
April 15, came just eight
days after he was sworn into
office. Earlier, NAFDC
recommended, without
dissent, that tetracycline
uses in animals not be
restricted. The advisory
group said the record did not
support any change.
Cyanamid said it hopes
further consideration of the
mass of scientific data
available, newly raised
questions about substitute
antibiotics listed by FDA,
and the overwhelming im
portance of the tetracyclines
for disease prevention will
lead to a modification of the
FDA position.
Tetracyclines have been
widely used in livestock
plant pests
baggage at airports,
seaports, offshore islands,
and border crossings. More
than 100 million such in
spections were done in 1976.
There is a continuing risk,
however, that pests can slip
through port inspections and
establish themselves in the
port area. There they could
build up large populations to
invade the rest of the
country.
Project Pest Alert also
supplements the ongoing
state-federal program to
monitor plant pest damage
and coordinate action to
reduce it. This program
already issues the
Cooperative Plant Pest
Report, which gives the
status of the current pest
situation. Findings of
Project Pest Alert will be
published in this report.
Popcorn up
Last year, U.S. producers
harvested popcorn on six per
cent fewer acres than in 1975,
but came up with a record
crop nonetheless. Excep
tionally high yields
averaging 2,863 pouhds an
acre-up 443 pounds from
1975-caused the increase.
feeds since 19&0 to prevent
disease, resulting not only in
healthier animals,
Cyanamid said, but also in
increased feed efficiency
and growth.
Commissioner Kennedy
said his action was based on
the theoretical possibility
that such uses would result
in populations of antibiotic
resistant bacteria which"
could lead to human health
problems. , The Com
missioner advised the
NAFDC that, although he
could not point to a specific
instance in which human
disease is more difficult to
treat because drug
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resistance has arisen from
an animal source, “It is
likely that such problems
could have'gone unnoticed.”
Cyanamid said that since
chlortetracycline, the first of
the antibiotic feed additives,
has been in widespread use
for 27 years, “We cannot
agree that if such a problem
had occurred it would have
‘gone unnoticed’ by
American physicians."
Responding to the new
Commissioner’s “disap
pointment" that industry
had not come up with other
alternatives, Cyanamid
pointed out that the search
has been going on since 1950.
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proposed
“Many new antibiotics
have come on the market in
the past 27 years,” the
company said. “The,
tetracyclines are still the
most widely used because
they are the most broadly
beneficial.”
The firm maintains 3 640-
acre agricultural research
facility at Princeton, em
ploying 'more than 400
scientists and technicians.
A USDA study, published
in 1975, said banning an
tibiotics in livestock feeds
could raise meat prices to
U.S. consumers as much as
$2.1 billion per year.
FARM CREDIT SERVICE
Restrictions similar to
those proposed by the FDA
Commissioner were imposed
in England in 1971. Ad
dressing the American
Society for Animal Science
in August, 1976. Dr. R
Braude, University of
Reading, England, said the
British restrictions do not
appear to have improved
human health there.
However, he said that,
because of increased animal
disease, veterinary
prescriptions for antibiotics
are about equal to the
amount used in feed for
disease prevention prior to
the restriction.