KEEPING ANTIBIOTICS EFFECTIVE

I have been following this issue for some years now. Some limited progress has been made, but misuse of antibiotics remains a problem that threatens the efficacy of antibiotics for treating human diseases.

This comes from KeepAntibioticsWorking.org:

Antibiotic Resistance Threatens Public Health
Doctors depend on antibiotics to treat illnesses caused by bacteria, from pneumonia to meningitis and other life-threatening infections. The effectiveness of many antibiotics has begun to wane, the legacy of decades of unnecessary overuse in both human medicine and agriculture.

Keep Antibiotics Working is a coalition of health, consumer, agricultural, environmental, humane and other advocacy groups with more than ten million members dedicated to eliminating a major cause of antibiotic resistance: the inappropriate use of antibiotics in food animals. For a general overview of the issue, see the Campaign's fact sheets: Antibiotic Resistance - An Emerging Public Health Crisis (an annotated version is also available) and Antibiotic Resistance and Animal Agriculture.

And a recent action alert:

Congress can safeguard antibiotics by passing the Preservation of Antibiotics for Medical Treatment Act (PAMTA). This legislation, if passed, will require the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to cancel approvals for the routine use of human antibiotics as a feed additive if the uses are found to be unsafe from a resistance point of view. KAW is working hard to ensure that this legislation continues to get the attention it needs from lawmakers, but we need your help in urging Congress to act as quickly as possible. Please Take Action! today and urge your friends and family to do the same. They can join KAW's action network here. The greater the public demand for action on this issue, the stronger our chances are for passing PAMTA in 2009!

FDA Watch: KAW and Allies Demand Action

KAW continues to actively engage with the FDA on issues related to antibiotic resistance and animal agriculture. KAW and allied groups have urged Dr. Joshua Sharfstein, the new Deputy Commissioner of the FDA, to take three immediate measures to safeguard antibiotics for future generations:

1) Reject the application to approve 4th generation cephalosporins for use in food-producing animals;

2) Reissue the ban on the extra-label use of cephalosporins in food-producing animals; and

3) Make public the findings of the FDA's review of penicillin and other veterinary drugs currently on the market, and take appropriate action on any drugs shown to be unsafe.

Want to read the letter in full? You can find it here (PDF).