The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) can continue to allow feeding livestock with various antibiotics, a federal appeals court decision said on Thursday. The decision came in despite public calls that such practices might endanger the health of consumers.
Based on court documents, for every dose of antibiotic supplied to humans for medical reasons, four doses of antibiotics are meanwhile provided to animals for non-medical purposes, encouraging faster and healthier growth. It also revealed that 28.8 million pounds of various antibiotics were given to livestock being raised for human food, mostly by animal feed.
A recent study, however, claims that bacteria developing resistance to antibiotic in livestock feed can move to humans and thus pose risks to their health. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention also has issued a warning regarding the inappropriate use of antibiotics in both humans and animals.
It is for this reason that there are ongoing calls for FDA to ban the use of particular antibiotics in livestock feed. The organizations that filed the complaint and called for the banning of some antibiotics in livestock feed are the Union of Concerned Scientists, Inc., Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc., Public Citizen Inc., Food Animal Concerns Trust and Center for Science in the Public Interest.
Yet the second circuit of the U.S. court of appeals said that the FDA has the power to refuse the calls to change its policy regarding antibiotic use in animal feed, reversing an earlier ruling by the lower court.
“The district court accepted plaintiffs’ contention. Because we conclude that plaintiffs and the district court are incorrect, we reverse the judgment of the district court,” wrote [pdf] circuit judge Gerard E. Lynch.
Lynch said that the FDA recognizes the threats of misusing antibiotics but this doesn’t mean it is essentially danger to health of humans.
A spokeswoman for the FDA said in a statement to The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) that they are “currently reviewing the decision but is pleased with the outcome.”
Meanwhile, many advocacy groups expressed worries over the recent court decision, according to the WSJ report.
“This effectively gives FDA a pass to ignore science and continue with a policy that will not really reduce antibiotic use,” said Avinash Kar, a staff attorney at National Resources Defense Council.
Kar added that it remains unclear till what extent the policy of the FDA will prevent risky antibiotics use to promote animal growth.
The second court ruling has also disappointed Robert Lawrence of the Johns Hopkins Center for Livable Future, saying the antibiotics misuse adds to the widespread resistance of antibiotics in hospitals and communities.
