Public Health Still Threatened as Toothless FDA Antibiotic Plan Slammed

12-12-2013 • http://www.commondreams.org, Andrea Germanos

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration's newly unveiled "voluntary plan with industry" to curb the use of antibiotics in livestock does too little, too late to address the public health crisis posed by antibiotic-resistant bacteria, critics charge.

In the U.S., 80 percent of all antibiotics are used on food animals in an effort to make then grow faster and resist disease. Yet food safety advocates and health professionals as well as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have warned that this has contributed to the rise in antibiotic-resistant 'superbugs.' "A post-antibiotic era means, in effect, an end to modern medicine as we know it," the World Health Organization has warned.