The Obama administration on June 2 convened the White House Forum on Antibiotic Stewardship, “to bring together key human and animal health constituencies involved in antibiotic stewardship.” The White House billed this meeting—to which more than 150 companies were invited—as furthering previous steps on antibiotic “stewardship” including the administration’s veterinary feed directive. While the meeting’s agenda was broader than just veterinary antibiotic use in livestock production, the tangible actions coming out of it were all targeted at livestock and meat.
The veterinary feed directive was an edict from the Food and Drug Administration, which oversees animal and livestock feed. It was issued in December 2013 and finalized in conjunction with the White House Summit. Its goal is to phase out the use of medically important antibiotics in livestock production by 2016. Indeed, curbing the sub-therapeutic use of antibiotics in livestock feed has been a cause celebre for the administration and the food nanny crowd for decades.
The New York Times describes adding antibiotics to feed as a “practice that experts say has endangered human health by fueling the growing epidemic of antibiotic resistance.” Those experts were not identified, and those who hold a different point of view were, as the Times characterized it, part of “the powerful food industry and its substantial lobbying power in Congress.” Suffice it to say, the topic is a vastly complicated issue of microbiology and is not as simple as meat industry critics contend.
Indeed, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) have concluded that the most acute problem is “poor antimicrobial stewardship among humans.” The most resistant organisms found in hospitals originate in the hospitals themselves, according to the CDC’s director, Dr. Tom Frieden. Also, people who don’t complete their full prescription of antibiotics add to microbial resistance.
In reality, the vast majority of antibiotics used by livestock are not those used in human medicines, and the veterinary antibiotics which are used in livestock production are strictly regulated by the FDA, are subject to strict withdrawal periods prior to slaughter, and, moreover, undergo exacting residue monitoring of the meat derived from livestock and poultry that were administered antibiotics. Regarding livestock production, the CDC’s Dr. Frieden has said, “we continue to promote the concept that if an animal is sick using antibiotics to treat that animal is obviously important. We want to increase the rational use of antibiotics.”
The livestock, meat, feed, and veterinary industries have voluntarily complied with the administration’s veterinary feed directive since the beginning, in order to do their part for health, safety, and, frankly, to meet a growing consumer demand driven by the constant discussion of the issue in the press and popular culture. So much so, that FDA issued a press release in March 2014, four months after the initial voluntary directive was issued, stating they were “encouraged by the strong response” from the industry.
The White House event marked the release of the final version of the directive. It noted that all 25 veterinary drug companies have committed to implement the new practices, which prohibit medically important antibiotics being used for production purposes, and will require animal producers to obtain authorization from a licensed veterinarian to use them for prevention, control or treatment of a specifically identified disease. The president could have declared victory for his initiative, and sat back to enjoy the plaudits of being a consensus builder on this controversial issue. Rather, he took the opportunity to stir more controversy.
As part of the event, the president also announced a new initiative, ordering, effective immediately, the White House Presidential Food Service go a step further and begin “serving meats and poultry that have not been treated with hormones or antibiotics” to the First Family and State Dinner guests. As the North American Meat Institute commented, the president’s statement “seems to demonstrate a lack of faith” in FDA’s approval process and oversight. It also indicates a skepticism of CDC’s scientific findings, and a strong dose of narcissism—prescribing one level of oversight for the masses, and adding an extra dose of precaution for himself. That was the president’s Marie Antoinette moment.
The president created needless further controversy by adding hormone implants into this policy discussion about antibiotics. The two issues are apples and oranges, but both play well with the food-nanny culture that he and the first lady have fostered through their well-publicized organic White House garden and Mrs. Obama’s various dietary crusades, including reducing meat in school lunch offerings.
Indeed, beef cattle may use hormone treatment to promote weight gain, but the impact of the hormone treatment is insignificantly small. According to Penn State University, a pound of beef from a cow implanted with growth promotants has an estrogenic activity of about 10 nanograms per pound; beef from a cow not implanted with growth promotants has about 7 nanograms of estrogenic activity per pound. Hardly worth alarm, especially when put in context. One pound of cabbage, for example, has 10,896 nanograms of estrogenic activity; the average adult male produces about 100,000 nanograms of estrogen per day. An adult woman, not pregnant, produces about five million nanograms of estrogen daily; pregnancy raises that to 90 million nanograms.
However, when announcing a new hormone free standard for “meat and poultry” in the White House kitchen, the president obviously failed to realize that pork and poultry are prohibited from being treated with hormones anyway.
As the North American Meat Institute stated, “the White House can buy pork and poultry products from animals or birds raised without hormones at any local grocery store and under any brand name.” Perhaps that is what’s most striking about the president’s prescriptive food, nutrition and health policy perspective—just how uniformed it actually can be.
