{"id":2252,"date":"2019-06-10T09:05:12","date_gmt":"2019-06-10T13:05:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/?p=2252"},"modified":"2019-06-10T09:05:12","modified_gmt":"2019-06-10T13:05:12","slug":"a-new-fight-to-protect-the-publics-health","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/a-new-fight-to-protect-the-publics-health\/","title":{"rendered":"A New Fight to Protect the Public\u2019s Health"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Last\nweek, a blockbuster story ran in the New York Times<\/em>: \u201cWarning of \u2018Pig\nZero\u2019: One Drugmaker\u2019s Push to Sell More Antibiotics.\u201d  The investigative report examined how the\npharmaceutical industry is pushing the overuse and misuse of antibiotics on\nfarm animals \u2013 in the case of the Times<\/em> story, pigs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why\nshould humans care?  Many of the\nantibiotics used on farm animals are ones that humans rely on too.  And the overuse of these antibiotics is\nfueling the growth of antibiotic-resistant bacteria, also known as \u201csuperbugs.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Farm\nanimals get doused with antibiotics due to the dirty and stressful conditions\nin which they live. Those conditions help breed disease and raise the risk of\ninfections.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Most\npeople who hear that antibiotics are losing effectiveness think about doctors\nwrongly prescribing the drugs to humans.  Many physicians can and should make better\ndecisions about antibiotic use in human health care.  However, in the United States, about\ntwo-thirds of the antibiotics that are considered important to human health\nactually are sold for food animal production.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sick\nanimals should<\/em> be treated with\nantibiotics.  But often, as the Times<\/em>\nreported, meat producers give the drugs to large numbers of animals that are not\nsick to prevent diseases commonly spurred by unsanitary, overcrowded, and\nstressful living conditions.  Compensating\nfor industrial farming conditions is not an appropriate use of life-saving\nmedicines.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Overusing\nantibiotics in any setting fuels the spread of drug-resistant bacteria. It\u2019s no\ndifferent on farms.  When animals receive\nregular doses of antibiotics it breeds resistant bacteria that can travel off\nfarms via the meat itself, direct contact with animals, or through water and\nsoil.  Those bacteria may find their way\nto people and infect them with illnesses that may not respond to available\nantibiotics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\noveruse of antibiotics has become such a worldwide problem that experts\nestimate that, unless something changes, deaths from antibiotics-resistant\nsuperbugs will exceed the number of cancer deaths.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According\nto the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), 20 percent of\nantibiotic-resistant infections originate on farms.  They get into the world\u2019s food supply and put\nhumans at risk.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\nharm is becoming more and more apparent. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\nCenters for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates that currently <\/em>at\nleast 23,000 Americans die from drug-resistant infections each year, but researchers\nat the Washington University School of Medicine think it could be seven times\nas many\u2014up to 162,000 deaths annually.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In\nNovember 2017, the World Health Organization called on meat producers to stop\nusing medically important antibiotics for routine disease prevention and to\nreserve these medicines for sick animals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\nmovement is getting help from some unlikely heroes not noted for responding to\nhealth concerns \u2013 major fast food chains. \nAfter hearing from consumers, McDonald\u2019s, Subway, KFC and more have\ncommitted to reduce antibiotic use throughout their meat supply chains.  Health advocates are now calling on Wendy\u2019s,\nthe third largest burger chain in the U.S., to phase routine antibiotic use out\nof its beef supply chain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

State\nlawmakers in California and Maryland have placed restrictions on antibiotic use\nin food-producing animals. Now it\u2019s time for New York\u2019s elected officials to\nheed the warnings from medical experts. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

New\nYork state lawmakers can help address this health crisis by supporting\nlegislation to limit antibiotic use.  State\nSen. Kavanagh (Manhattan) and Assemblywoman Romeo (Rochester) recently\nintroduced legislation that would place appropriate limits on the use of\nmedically important antibiotics in food-producing animals at farms across New\nYork State.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Their\nlegislation will prohibit the routine use of medically important antibiotics to\nprevent disease and reserve the drugs solely to treat sick animals or to\ncontrol a verified disease outbreak.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\nway meat is produced should not undermine modern medicine.  As lawmakers head toward the end of the\nlegislative session, they should act to protect both New York\u2019s rich\nagricultural tradition and the public\u2019s health. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last week, a blockbuster story ran in the New York Times: \u201cWarning of \u2018Pig Zero\u2019: One Drugmaker\u2019s Push to Sell More Antibiotics.\u201d  The investigative report examined how the pharmaceutical industry is pushing the overuse and misuse of antibiotics on farm animals \u2013 in the case of the Times story, pigs. Why should humans care?  Many […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2252","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2252","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2252"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2252\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2253,"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2252\/revisions\/2253"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2252"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2252"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2252"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}