{"id":287,"date":"2007-03-06T18:11:25","date_gmt":"2007-03-06T18:11:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/spoonful\/2007\/03\/people-not-cattle.html"},"modified":"2007-03-06T18:11:25","modified_gmt":"2007-03-06T18:11:25","slug":"treating_animals_or_people","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/spoonful\/2007\/03\/treating_animals_or_people.html","title":{"rendered":"People not cattle"},"content":{"rendered":"

What are FDA<\/span> officials thinking?<\/p>\n

The FDA<\/span> is poised to approve a front-line antibiotic used for mengingitis and other human infections for use in cattle, according to a report in Sunday\u2019s Washington Post<\/a>. Approval of the antibiotic could lead to antibiotic resistance developing in animals, and then spreading to people.<\/p>\n

Apparently the agency is not thinking; it seems instead to be following a \u2018guidance document’.<\/p>\n

And that document goes against the advice of the agency\u2019s own scientific experts, the American Medical Association and about a dozen other health groups.<\/p>\n

These health groups point to evidence<\/a> that antibiotic use in animals is linked to the development of antibiotic resistance in the human population. In fact, an FDA<\/span> advisory committee voted 6 to 4 against approving animal use of the antibiotic, cefquinome, a fourth-generation cephalosporin.<\/p>\n

Nonetheless, Stephen Sundloff, the head of the FDA\u2019s Veterinary Medicine Center, told panel members that their vote was \u201cnot binding\u201d. Instead, he told the committee that the FDA<\/span> was bound by \u201cGuidance for Industry #152\u201d which limits bans on antibiotic use in animals; the details are a bit mind-numbing but it seems that it\u2019s only easy to ban an antibiotic for animal use if the drug threatens treatments for food-borne illnesses.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s way too narrow a definition, given the ability of bacteria to exchange resistance genes. Let\u2019s hope that, in the end, the FDA<\/span> is able to make a common-sense and scientifically sound decision.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What are FDA officials thinking?  Read more<\/a> Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":161,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-287","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-drugs-drugs-and-more-drugs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/spoonful\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/287","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/spoonful\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/spoonful\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/spoonful\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/161"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/spoonful\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=287"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/spoonful\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/287\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/spoonful\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=287"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/spoonful\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=287"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/spoonful\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=287"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}