The following information was researched and prepared largely by Steve Kopperud, executive vice president of Policy Directions Inc. and AFIA’s government affairs consultant. He may be reached at [email protected]. Readers also may contact AFIA’s Joel Newman ([email protected]), Anne Keller ([email protected]) or Richard Sellers ([email protected]) for information.

A two-part CBS News report on the use of antibiotics in agriculture will air Feb. 3-4 at 6:30 p.m. (EST). The first promotion ran the evening of Feb. 1 at the end of the “Evening News” broadcast. The two stories, to be reported by “Evening News” anchor Katie Couric, coincide with the beginning of television’s February “sweeps” rating period, one of four periods each year when viewership is used to calculate advertising rates for the coming year. Stories aired during these times tend to be more sensational.

AFIA has worked closely with its animal health company members, as well as with the national organizations representing our customers, to try and ensure the CBS reports are balanced. We know several activist groups including the Pew Commission on Industrialized Farming, the Union of Concerned Scientists, and the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health’s “Center for a Livable Future” – which promotes “Meatless Mondays” – have been providing CBS with their views.

The CBS reports will likely condemn the practice of antibiotic use on-farm to prevent disease and enhance feed efficiency as a significant contributor to human antibiotic resistance; hold up Denmark and the European Union, both of which banned growth promotion/feed efficiency antibiotic use, as successes; focus on “natural” and organic production as viable alternatives for consumers; and ultimately, provide a forum for the congressional author of a bill to ban antibiotics on the farm to promote the legislation. 

CBS sent crews to Missouri, Iowa, Pennsylvania, Oklahoma and Denmark to gather video and conduct interviews. As AFIA advised you in January, at least two AFIA member-companies were approached to allow filming of stock footage, also known as b-roll, inside their feed mills to show antibiotics being added to feed; to our knowledge, these requests were turned down. 

CBS interviewed organic and natural pork producers, as well as a “natural” turkey producer in Pennsylvania. In the face-to-face interview with Couric, an Iowa hog producer who uses low-level antibiotics later reported that Couric repeatedly referred to “factory” and “industrialized” farms, asked him if he was “apologetic” about using the products, asked him if he was concerned about resistance in humans and asked whether he’d been “coached” for the interview. The “natural” turkey farmer was interviewed on a neighbor’s farm because his barns were empty. 

Dr. Liz Wagstrom, assistant vice president of the National Pork Board and a veterinarian and public-health expert, was interviewed by Couric in New York last week. Her experience was much the same as that of the Iowa farmer. Liz reported many of the 50-60 questions were emotional, as in “Don’t you care?,” “Aren’t you worried?,” etc. Couric allowed as how the Danish ban was a great success story, that legislation to ban the products is “common sense,” and that antibiotic use in agriculture “obviously” leads to greater resistance in humans. Also interviewed for the segments were Dr. Ellen Silbergeld of Johns Hopkins, a long-time critic of on-farm antibiotic use and author of the Pew Commission’s section on antibiotic use, and Rep. Louise Slaughter (D-N.Y.), author of legislation to ban the use of most antibiotics on farms.

AFIA will respond to the CBS reports, and we provide you the following talking points so that you, too, can make CBS aware of your views on their coverage:

AFIA TALKING POINTS ON ANTIBIOTIC USE IN AGRICULTURE:

• FDA-approved antibiotics are used in a targeted manner – when animals are sick or exposed to disease – to prevent, control and treat livestock and poultry diseases. Some are also used to enhance growth and nutritional efficiency of the animals and birds. All FDA-approved antibiotics must meet/exceed rigorous animal and human food safety standards.
  

• FDA-approved antibiotics protect the health of animals, ensuring a safe, compassionate, sustainable, affordable and reliable food supply for consumers.
  

• Studies demonstrate judiciously used antibiotics actually contribute to reduced risks of bacterial contamination of meat and dairy. Banning these products will cause animal suffering, reduce farm income, and work against making food safer.
  

• FDA-approved antibiotics are added to feed because this is the most efficient way in which to reach entire herds and flocks with these important animal health products. The amount of antibiotic in a specific feed is set by FDA – generally in grams per ton of feed – and these feeds can only be mixed by facilities operating on federal regulations specifying Good Manufacturing Practices (GMPs) and are inspected on a regular basis by FDA and state inspectors.
  

• FDA conducts not only pre-approval review of all antibiotics used in feed, it maintains stringent post-approval monitoring, participates in USDA’s routine residue monitoring programs, cooperates in “responsible” and “judicious” use programs with veterinarians, farmers and ranchers, and actively tracks patterns of antibiotic resistance in humans.
  

• There is no “smoking-gun” science establishing the link between on-farm antibiotic use and human resistance.  However, there are mountains of data showing a link between over-prescription in human medicine and hospital-acquired infections.
  

• Legislation to ban antibiotic use is naïve and shows a basic lack of understanding of how the products are used, how much is used, how they’re regulated and the impact on animal welfare, food quality, safety and affordability, and human health.
  

• Critics assert 70% of all antibiotics sold in the U.S. are fed to food animals for non-therapeutic purposes. There is no basis for this claim, nor do activists attempt to explain the number. The number is an agenda-driven number. To reach the 70% number means critics include drugs approved years ago, but never sold in the U.S., include products specifically developed for farm animals with no human medical use, and assume farmers medicate all animals throughout their entire lives at the maximum permitted dosage.  All wrong.
  

• The “Danish experience” is anything but a success. European reports, interviews with Danish producers and veterinarians and others familiar with the aftermath of the ban on growth promotion and feed efficiency uses of the products, demonstrate a re-emergence of swine diseases not seen in Denmark for decades; a near-100% increase in the use of antibiotics to treat sick animals, and no material impact on human resistance, reaffirmed by the findings of a congressional fact-finding mission to Denmark in December 2009.