As promised, we’ve posted our full testimony (scroll down) from yesterday’s U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions hearing at which we testified about the positive reasons for using antimicrobials in food animals and reminded the Senators of the need for veterinarians to use antibiotics in livestock to keep our food safe. In the absence of committee chair Senator Edward M. Kennedy, Senator Sherrod Brown, D- Ohio, ran the hearing, which focused primarily on the human implications of MRSA (Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus).

Dr. Lyle P. Vogel, AVMA's assistant executive vice president, testified for us. He soothed concerns that use of antimicrobials – such as penicillin and tetracycline – in food animals leads to human resistance of the drugs and said that scientific data does not support a ban on the use of antibiotics in food animals to prevent disease.

"Risk assessments demonstrate a very low risk to human health from the use of antimicrobials in food animals, and some models predict an increased human health burden if the use is withdrawn," Dr. Vogel testified. "Non-risk based bans of approved uses of antimicrobials will negatively impact animal health and welfare without predictably improving public health."

Antibiotic resistance in some instances, he added, is ten times greater in Denmark than in the United States despite a Danish ban since the 90s on some uses of the drugs.

Finally, Dr. Vogel told the committee that FDA’s evaluations of antibiotics used in livestock are more stringent than for human antibiotics. The FDA, he said, evaluates each food animal antibiotic for human, environmental and animal safety, and additionally, public and private surveillance systems monitor the use of the drugs for the emergence of antibiotic resistance.

>> Read AVMA's complete written testimony

>> View executive summary of testimony

JAVMA News has posted a pretty comprehensive overview of the gains made through the recently passed Farm Bill. Take a look at the article for a run-down of the food safety issues addressed in the bill, including funding authorization for the Food Animal Residue Avoidance Databank (FARAD).

The The article features an interview with Dr. Alistair Webb, a FARAD administrator at the University of Florida. In the interview, Dr. Webb reminds us all that the program has yet to have the authorized monies budgeted for the program and that, right now, “The present is very bleak."

Remember, even though FARAD has been authorized for funding, it has yet to actually receive the money it needs to operate. We’ll continue to update you on our battle to get full funding for this program crucial to keeping our meat, eggs and dairy products safe to eat. But your support, by way of a phone call or letter to your congressional representatives, would help. Let them know that you’re still concerned that FARAD won’t be funded and that your health and that of your family will be put in jeopardy.

From the article:

Highlights from the farm bill include authorization for a $2.5 million annual appropriation for the Food Animal Residue Avoidance Databank from 2008 through 2012. FARAD is a chronically underfunded resource used by veterinarians, livestock producers, and state and federal regulatory and extension specialists to ensure that drug, environmental, and pesticide contaminants do not end up in meat, milk, and eggs.

The database is administered through the Agriculture Department's Cooperative State Research, Education, and Extension Service and operates out of North Carolina State University, the University of Florida-Gainesville, and the University of California-Davis.

FARAD has been operating since September 2007 on emergency funds set to expire within the year. What's more, there's no guarantee the money in the farm bill will be appropriated. The AVMA-GRD staff is working with the House and Senate appropriations committees to secure the appropriation. But even if they're successful, the money won't arrive until 2010, which, according to Dr. Alistair Webb, a FARAD administrator at UF-Gainesville, is too late.

"We're eking this out, but come sometime in the new year, we're going to run out of money before any appropriation based on the farm bill in next year's budget. In other words, there is no funding for FARAD in the 2009 budget," Dr. Webb said, adding that layoffs of specially trained staff are all but certain. This compromises institutional ability, which later takes time to rebuild.

"We're happy for the future, but the present is very bleak," Dr. Webb said.

We’ve been invited to testify about the use of antibiotics in food animals and its impact on our health before the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions on Tuesday, June 24. (Check  out the above link to see who’s on the committee – it’s really a who’s who of Senate powerbrokers, chaired by the remarkable Senator Edward Kennedy.) Testifying for us at the hearing will be Dr. Lyle Vogel, AVMA’s Assistant Executive Vice President, who has spent many years researching this issue. In the coming weeks, we’ll post Dr. Vogel’s written testimony – and additional info about antibiotic resistance – so that you can keep track and stay informed.

As we prep for the testimony, here’s some insight on the issue….

Antibiotics are among the most important tools a food animal veterinarian has in the ongoing battle to keep our food safe. Many folks don’t know that penicillin and tetracycline, two drugs everyone knows as human drugs, are crucial to keeping salmonella and other bacteria out of our food supply. Veterinarians use these antibiotics in a number of ways to keep our meat, eggs and dairy products free of bacteria and viruses. Obviously, they’d be prescribed for an animal that is sick. But sometimes, the antibiotics are given as a preventative, to help keep animals at a high risk of illness from getting sick.

Why? Well, think about it this way: these animals -- cows, pigs, turkeys, chickens, etc -- live in close groups called herds or flocks. They share food and water. If one animal from the group is sick, the whole herd has to be treated because it is very likely that the bacteria or illness has already spread to the others in the group. This is similar to treating students who have been exposed to another student with bacterial meningitis at school. And I think we can all agree that we do not want sick animals or salmonella and other bacteria in the foods we eat.

Sounds complicated, doesn’t it? Well, it is. Thankfully, we don’t have to make these decisions ourselves daily. We don’t have to constantly worry if each bite of meat, each sip of milk is safe to consume. And this is because veterinarians are out there making these tough calls – decisions about animal health and its impact on human health.

Yesterday, we attended the quarterly International Food Information Council (IFIC) Food Safety and Defense (FS&D) Communications Forum along with representatives from several food animal producer groups, a number of leading scientists and several well-known nutrition experts.

With a mission to “communicate science-based information on food safety and nutrition to health and nutrition professionals, educators, journalists, government officials and others providing information to consumers,” IFIC is really doing a great job of monitoring and communicating trends and confronting the challenges to food safety that we all face. Hats off to them!

A lot of good information was presented at yesterday’s meeting, including findings from the IFIC Foundation 2008 Food & Health Survey. Among the findings that shouldn’t surprise anyone who’s been tracking some of the recent food safety issues is the fact that 45% of Americans feel confident in the US food supply, while 26% say they are not confident and 29% say they are neither confident nor unconfident. Over one-quarter of Americans don’t trust the food supply? If I were in Congress, I’d certainly sit up and take notice!

It’s interesting to note that the same survey shows that Americans’ confidence goes up when it comes to safely preparing foods for themselves and their families -- with 82% of the respondents saying they trust themselves to safely prepare foods. That may be true, but how do they know that food is safe in the first place?

Our guess is that they’re confident that a knowledgeable, competent person – usually a veterinarian – has inspected that food. And that, rules and regulations were followed before that dairy product, meat protein and even fruits and vegetables went to market. Let’s hope so!

A webcast on the survey is available here.

We’ll have more information from IFIC in the future, including more links to some of the great resources available on their web site. In the meantime, we’re thankful to be able to collaborate with groups like the IFIC – all of us working together to make sure that cool glass of milk, that juicy hamburger and that apple pie with a scoop of vanilla ice cream is a safe as it is yummy.