Food Fight: the Vittles Blog

 

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Just say no.

The Washington Post reports that the FDA is about to approve a new antibiotic for cattle that the American Medical Association and other health groups strenuously object to. In fact, even the FDA's own Advisory Board voted to reject it.

The drug, called cefquinome, is a highly potent antibiotic which, according to the Washington Post story, is "among medicine's last defense against several serious human infections."

Anyone familiar with the concept of the food chain probably isn't surprised to hear that using it on cattle is expected to speed up human resistance to the drug.

This won't be the first time the FDA listened to big pharma instead of health officials. In the mid 1990s they ignored the CDC and other public health officials and approved BAytril and SarFlox (fluoroquinolones) for use in poultry to fight campylobactor. Guess what? People were soon being hospitalized with fluoroquinolone-resistent strains of campylobacter. (And if that doesn't turn your stomach--it took until 2005 till FDA could finally get it banned.)

Just say no. posted by Pat on March 12, 2007 @ 7:43 AM
Filed under: Foodie

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