Chipotle Talks to Congress About Antibiotics in Livestock

by: zardoz86

Sat Mar 06, 2010 at 17:02:11 PM PST

PAMTA Senate Briefing
H.R. 1549 - Preservation of Antibiotics for Medical Treatment Act (PAMTA)
Steve Ells Remarks
March 2, 2010

Thank you for joining us today, and for giving me the opportunity to speak on this important issue. I'm Steve Ells, and I am the founder, chairman and co-CEO of Chipotle Mexican Grill, a national chain of about 1,000 restaurants that is changing the way people think about and eat fast food.
We are doing this in a lot of ways, but none more important to me than our quest to serve the best tasting food we can, made from ingredients from more sustainable sources. We call this commitment "Food with Integrity."

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Elanco's Self-Serving White Paper

What do consumers want? Cheap, tasty, convenient food. And they DON'T care how you produce it. That's what Elanco, subsidiary of Eli Lilly, maker of rbGH and other animal drugs says in a white paper available from their website. Details below.

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Bill to Limit Antibiotics in Livestock Gains Support

by: Jill Richardson

Sun Dec 27, 2009 at 22:09:31 PM PST

S. 619, The Preservation of Antibiotics for Medical Treatment Act (PAMTA), just gained 3 new co-sponsors in the Senate: Sen. Whitehouse (D-RI), Sen. Lautenberg (D-NJ), and Sen. Specter (D-PA). This brings it up to a total of 15 co-sponsors in the Senate (and 100 co-sponsors in the House version, H.R. 1549). That's still not enough to pass it in either body, but it's nice to see some movement on such an important bill. Furthermore, it doesn't seem to be a left-right issue since both Senators from Maine plus Lieberman have signed on. You'll notice a lack of co-sponsors from the center of the country though.

The bill does not ban all antibiotics in livestock. If an animal is sick, of course the farmer should be able to treat it. The ban will be on nontherapeutic uses (i.e. when an animal is NOT sick) classes of antibiotics that are used in human medicine. The goal is exactly like the name of the bill says - to prevent the evolution of bacteria that are resistant to antibiotics used to treat humans. This bill was introduced into the House by Louise Slaughter, and she's got a microbiology background. The Senate version was introduced by Ted Kennedy and it's unfortunate that he won't be around to vote for it. I've included a full list of Senate co-sponsors below. If either of your Senators aren't on the list, shoot 'em an email and ask them to co-sponsor it.

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Why Are Vets Against Antibiotics in Livestock Reform?

by: Jill Richardson

Tue Aug 18, 2009 at 08:27:56 AM PDT

Why is it that physicians who care for humans worry about antibiotic resistance from overuse of antibiotics, but veterinarians are not at all concerned? The vast majority of antibiotics used in this country are given to animals who aren't even sick. The antibiotics are intended to promote growth and to prevent infections from occurring in factory farmed animals whose immune systems are compromised by the harsh conditions they live in. The practice of giving non-therapeutic antibiotics to livestock threatens the effectiveness of antibiotics in human medicine, yet the American Veterianary Medical Association has come out against a bill to ban 7 classes of antibiotics used in human medicine from non-therapeutic use in livestock. What gives?

Antibiotic resistant bacteria is not a future problem - it's a current problem. In addition to reports of MRSA on factory hog farms, I've also seen reports like this one from Bill Marler about antibiotic-resistant Salmonella:

Just in the last week, the reality (again) of antibiotic-resistant Salmonella Newport has surfaced (again), this time sickening dozens so far in several states, and leading to the recall of nearly a million pounds of tainted hamburger. This follows a recall of nearly a half a million pounds of Salmonella-tainted burger in Colorado after sickening several a month ago.
Of course, this is not the first time that antibiotic-resistant Salmonella has hitched a ride in hamburger - there were illnesses in 1999, and it was reported by the CDC in 2002 and a WARNING issued by FSIS in 2007. The New Hampshire Department of Health and Human Services has urged a strategy to combat multidrug-resistant (MDR) Salmonella in ground beef. The CDC, through NARMS has continued to raise concerns about the over-use of antibiotics in our food supply. And, there is clearly no question that these bugs are in the cows we get our milk and the meat that we eat.
The CDC has reported that Salmonella Newport is the third most common Salmonella serotype in the United States. During 1997 - 2001, the number of laboratory-confirmed Salmonella Newport infections reported to CDC increased from 1,584 (5%) of 34,608 reported Salmonella infections to 3,152 (10%) of 31,607 (CDC, unpublished data, 2002). The increasing number of Salmonella Newport infections in the United States appears to be associated with the emergence and rapid dissemination of multidrug-resistant strains of Salmonella Newport. Since 1996, NARMS has identified an increasing number of Salmonella Newport isolates that are resistant to at least nine of 17 antimicrobial agents tested: amoxicillin/clavulanate, ampicillin, cefoxitin, ceftiofur, cephalothin, chloramphenicol, streptomycin, sulfamethoxazole, and tetracycline.

If you find this as concerning as I do, please contact your Representative and your Senators and ask them to support the Preservation of Antibiotics for Medical Treatment Act.

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You Can't Fix Rising Health Care Costs Without Fixing Food

by: Jill Richardson

Tue Jul 21, 2009 at 06:16:23 AM PDT

Trying to fix our rising health care costs without fixing our food system is like trying to fix our defense budget without ending our two wars in the Middle East. In fact, it would be like trying to get a grip on defense spending while invading Pakistan. Or something like that. Here's what I mean:

This graph shows the percentage increase in health care costs between 2001 and 2006 for people classified as "Normal" weight, overweight, and obese.

In a recent blog post over at FoodPolitics.com, Marion Nestle summed it up best. Recently released CDC stats show that the percentage of Americans engaged in physical activity is remaining stable, while obesity and diabetes rates are rising in tandem with one another. Our problem is food. And given the fact that the problem is getting worse, we've gotta do something about it. Not just for our wallets, but for our quality of life.

UPDATE: I posted this on DailyKos and some people thought I meant that we don't need a public option or single payer, and we should replace those ideas with national weight loss. Nothing could be further from the truth. No amount of food system reform can provide care to the 50 million uninsured Americans. We need Congress to fix that. What I am arguing is that in addition to that, in order to control costs and improve quality of life, we ALSO need to fix our food system.

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What Swine Flu Tells Us About Factory Farms

by: Jill Richardson

Thu Apr 30, 2009 at 19:37:18 PM PDT

A friend just asked me for info about swine flu and factory farms. I wrote up the following as an email and then decided I might as well post it because it's a fairly clear explanation of the bigger picture.

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