“We Are Standing on the Brink of a Public Health Catastrophe”
From Food Safety News
Congresswoman Louise Slaughter (D-NY) reacted to the National Antimicrobial Resistance Monitoring System (NARMS) report this week, calling the increases in certain types of drug resistance among bacteria found on retail meat and ground poultry “alarming.”
“We are standing on the brink of a public health catastrophe,” said Rep. Slaughter. “The threat of antibiotic-resistant disease is real, it is growing and those most at risk are our seniors and children. We can help stop this threat by drastically reducing the overuse of antibiotics in our food supply, and Congress should act swiftly to do so today.”
[…]
“The report found that 50.3 percent of antibiotic-resistant bacteria found on ground turkey were resistant to three or more antibiotic classes. Interestingly, no bacteria were found to be resistant to vancomycin and linezolid , which are two antibiotics not used in food animal production.”
Rep. Slaughter is the author of the Preservation of Antibiotics for Medical Treatment Act, legislation that would phase out medically important antibiotics from being used subtherapeutically.
Read the full article here.
