Antibiotic-Free Meat: Is the FDA Finally Catching Up to the American Consumer?
Is antibiotic-free meat coming soon to every supermarket in America? Not quite yet, but a statement made yesterday by a high-ranking Food and Drug Administration official supporting the discontinuation of antibiotics to promote livestock growth offers a glimmer of hope that the days of heavy antibiotic use in livestock may be coming to an end. In the statement, prepared for a House hearing regarding Rep. Louise Slaughter's (D-NY) bill to limit the unnecessary use of antibiotics in the nation's food supply (Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-MA) has introduced a companion bill in the Senate), Principal Deputy FDA Commissioner Joshua Sharfstein said that "purposes other than for the advancement of animal or human health should not be considered judicious use," and should be prohibited.
While Sharfstein's statement is encouraging, it only demonstrates that the FDA, as usual, is light-years behind the American consumer. Its controversial ruling last year that suspected endocrine disruptor bisphenol A (BPA) is, in fact, safe, stands in stark contrast to consumer outcries for elimination of the chemical. Walmart and Toys 'R' Us no longer sell baby bottles made with BPA; legislation banning BPA has already been passed in Minnesota, Connecticut, and the city of Chicago; and even a recent joint study by researchers at Harvard University and our government's very own Centers for Disease Control and Prevention implicated baby bottles as a source of BPA exposure for infants. Yet the FDA website states, "At this time, FDA is not recommending that anyone discontinue using products that contain BPA while we continue our risk assessment process."
Broad, sweeping change (especially at the federal level) usually only occurs as a result of transformation at the grassroots level. I remember when organic beef was first offered at my local supermarket in the mid '90s: It was extremely expensive and not always available, and the average shopper wasn't even familiar with the term organic. Fast-forward 15 years, and organic products now line the shelves of Walmart, and natural foods behemoth Whole Foods has become the 10th largest food and drug store in the US.
This sea change didn't occur as a result of federal legislation; it happened because of the choices made by individual shoppers. The beauty of our system is that when government lags behind, we as American consumers still have the power to direct the marketplace by the products we buy -- or don't buy.
Yet, even if changing attitudes prompt Burger King to offer free-range Whoppers with organic artisan cheddar, there's no way to dramatically reduce the growing public health threat of antibiotic-resistant bacteria if we don't pass federal legislation that will prevent agribusiness from plumping up livestock with antibiotics. (The Union of Concerned Scientists' Margaret Mellon also testified in the House hearing yesterday, explaining that antibiotic resistance is directly connected to the practice of feeding antibiotics to livestock and poultry that are not sick.)
Short of contacting your senators and representatives to urge support for the antibiotic ban (and I suggest you do so), the best solution is to do what Americans always do best: Vote with your wallet.
Rob Smart: Seeing Through the Food Industry's "Personal Responsibility" Smoke Screen
"Personal responsibility" is used as a smoke screen to cover the tracks of industrial food, tracks that run roughshod over the mirage of choice and personal responsibility.
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Bovine growth hormone could be the big culprit in the obesity epidemic, along with the HFCS that should be banned now.
Obama's administration can make great strides if he starts to really pay attention to the FDA.
Bushco really set up a tremendous mess everywhere, making sure the dems wouldn't have a prayer of solving major problems without years of effort .
Its almost like we need a special prosecutor for Monsanto alone. Their history is reading like demons on speed.
This is a tiny baby step. I won't buy meat at the market until all cattle are grass fed and grass finished. Until their is no such thing as a feedlot. Until they are humanely raised and slaughtered. I am not asking everyone to become vegetarian, but we should consider how animals are treated before they reach the plate. Until then, I will continue to purchase beef from the little farm 45 minutes from my home.
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I agree, Boston. There's a lot wrong with the way animals are treated as they are prepared for human consumption. They don't just feed cows corn, they feed them meat byproducts, like ground cow bone, making them cannibals. This is not only against their nature, but contributes to serious health problems in them and those who eventually eat them.
It is true that in history, reason always prevails. Slavery was eventually ended, most people do acknowledge that the world is in fact not flat, and this is one step toward the end of the cruel treatment of sentient beings. It is progress.
Outlaw feeding corn to cows while your at it.
Vote with your wallet if you have money in it. If you don't, you are on your own and you'll be eating c*rap that you can afford.
While I agree with your observations that the FDA seems to be following public opinions and patterns, the example used, BPA, is a horrible misrepresentation of fact vs opinion.
As you stated, the FDA ruled that BPA is "safe". This would be considered a fact (regardless of evidence that disputes BPA's safeness) by the FDA and other scientists. Personal or public opinion regarding the safety of chemical is not necessarily based on scientific evdience; it is most likely based on hear-say and gossip, often perpetuated by naive and well-meaning media. The FDA based their decisions (presumably) on scientifically derived quantitative information.
The idea that "consumer outcries for elimination of the chemical" is in "stark contrast" to the ruling is like comparing apples to oranges; those are two entirely different things. Public opinion and scientifically derived fact/consensus are two different things, and should not be held at the same level of importance or certainty.
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I do agree with you that the media (and well-meaning people) can perpetuate rumors that are not based on scientific evidence, but I do not believe this is the case with BPA. Numerous scientific studies have been published (including the Harvard/CDC one mentioned above in my post) that seriously question the safety of BPA. I would hardly call The Journal of the American Medical Association's findings "hear-say":
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=bpa-study-plastic-chemica
Also, keep in mind that the FDA also once ruled that the following things were "safe": Vioxx, Celebrex, Zelnorm...
http://health.msn.com/health-topics/articlepage.aspx?cp-documentid=100198246&page=2
Antibiotics have been given to livestock due to horrendous overcrowding. If you stuff any kind of animal into an enclosure where it barely has room to turn around and where it stands perpetually in its own feces and the feces and urine of other similarly-imprisoned animals, it's going to become ill. However, illness isn't really important to the bottom line, because animals who are only moderately sick can easily be sold on. But when these animals start to die, profits fall. That is the reason for the industry-wide use of antibiotics.
I buy only meat which is certified as being antibiotic-free, grain-fed, etc. And yet I know there are very few controls in place in America to verify. In this, as in all green issues, we can take a cue from the EU, whose policies are light years ahead of ours. Until we start treating our food animals humanely and keeping them healthy right up to slaughter, there are going to be health issues related to their consumption.
As bad as the immediate threat of eating antibiotic laced meat is, you are correct to identify the more ominous health hazard of antibiotic resistant diseases. We need to adopt a more judicious approach to antibiotic use whether to feed livestock or treat humans before it is too late.
One major area I'd like to see Obama change is the FDA, and actually put some real meaning to organic food labels, as well as the removal of needless antibiotics from meats.
I agree. And since he has kids, he should too.
Definitely.
The FDA's next step- giving US consumers a choice on whether they want to eat Genetically Modified foods... or not.
This is so basic but FDA is in cahoots with the industry it regulates, i.e. monsanto.
Monsanto is the most evil corporation on the planet. They actively try to destroy anything natural or organic. They want every plant to be genetically modified, and every seed to be GM and sold by them. If it was up to them, nature itself would be illegal.
I thought they had been successful in outlawing even identification of GMO in the food chain, because consumers might get "confused".
Stick big fat labels on the packages. Then let the consumers buy what they want.
That will let stores know what sells. If it doesn't sell, they won't stock it. If they won't stock it, the producers won't produce it.
Don't stop there.
I love a good bologna sandwich but every package of bologna in my store has corn syrup in it. So does the salami and the hotdogs. I'm going to have to find a Kosher deli to buy my coldcuts now.
Corn syrup in yogurt. I don't buy it. Ice cream. Pass.
I'm all for labels. Put those antibiotic-free labels on the meat and the milk and I'll buy that too.
You have to wonder if the powers that be who are allowing corn syrup, antibiotics and other questionable additives/ingredients in our food actually feed this stuff to their own families. Do the company heads feed their own families meat with hormones and antibiotics? Or are they eating the grass fed/free range organic livestock? Are the Pepsi and Coke CEOs (and other companies) filling up their own kids with HFCS?
Michelle Obama feeds her family organic and says "and you start reading the labels and you realize there’s high-fructose corn syrup in everything we’re eating. Every jelly, every juice. Everything that’s in a bottle or a package is like poison in a way that most people don’t even know. . . . Now we’re keeping, like, a bowl of fresh fruit in the house."
After hearing more about antibotics in the meat industry, while I like the idea, it seems the "anti-biotic free" thing might be unnecessarily harsh.
For example, if a cow gets sick, then treated one (or a few) times with antibiotics, it can no longer be called anti-biotic free. I think the real point of the designation is to get away from cows being fed corn and anti-biotics until their stomachs are almost destroyed by the corn, at which point they are butchered. Simply treating a sick cow seems to be at the other end of the spectrum.
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Sharfstein also said this in his testimony:
"FDA also believes that the use of medications for prevention and control should be under the supervision of a veterinarian."
So yes, the point of the legislation is to stop the practice of using excessive antibiotics to promote livestock growth and prevent disease as a result of overcrowding and unsanitary conditions in factory farms. It doesn't prohibit the use of antibiotics to treat sick animals or pets.
And you're right: If an organically raised animal becomes sick, it is treated with antibiotics but does not receive the organic label.
No, no, no, no, no...
Requiring farmers to hire a vet every time a cow, ewe or pig needs a shot of penicillin or a vaccine will only run more small farms out of business.
"Vote with your wallet". Don't buy the costly organic/antibiotic-free meat products. Eat vegetarian...that'll show them!!!!
But then again, who the heck wants to be a vegetarian?
Besides, Kellogg's, General Mills, Dole and the Jolly Green Giant ("Ho, ho, ho") likes your money too.
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