Area Doctors, WISPIRG Call For More Restrictions On Animal Feed Antibiotics

Local doctors are calling on the federal government to further restrict the use of antibiotics in animal feed to reduce so-called “superbugs” in humans that are resistant to treatment.

Voluntary guidelines were put in place last year by the Food and Drug Administration restricting the farm use of antibiotics that are important to human health.

Critics, however, say many antibiotics are still put in feed to fatten animals. The Wisconsin Public Interest Research Group is calling for stricter measures that local doctors support.

University of Wisconsin pediatrician Dipesh Navsaria calls the battle with bacteria an “arms race,” with bacteria changing faster than new drugs to control them can be developed.

“Largely we’ve been able to keep up, but now we’re seeing we may not be able to have the new antibiotics to treat these things adequately,” said Navsaria.

The more powerful antibiotics now used to fight evolving bacteria can also be expensive and toxic, according to Carol Spiegel, an emeritus professor of microbiology at UW-Madison. Spiegel said that in the past, children with meningitis or pneumonia got a dose of penicillin; now, that may not work on certain bacteria.

She said one culprit for the change is the food we eat.

“Many of our infections with bacteria are acquired from exposure to animals including livestock and poultry, via their meat or their eggs or fruit and vegetables contaminated with their feces,” said Spiegel. “Think of salmonella from eggs, campobacter from poultry, E. coli from apple cider.”

Doctors and WISPIRG want the government to limit farmer’s use of antibiotics to animals that are sick.