Edited article from Feedstuffs.

Last week Sen. Ted Kennedy (D., Mass.), introduces a bill aimed at
phasing out the non-therapeutic use of antibiotics in livestock
production.Kennedy, who is the chairman of Senate Health, Education
Labor & Pensions Committee, introduced the Preservation of Antibiotics
for Human Treatment Act of 2002 May 9, co-sponsored by Sen. Jack  Reed
(D., R.I.).

 The bill would "phase out the non-therapeutic use in livestock of
medically important
 antibiotics, unless their manufacturers can show that they pose
 no danger to public health," according to a statement from
 Kennedy's office. The bill requires the same standard for Food &
 Drug Administration approvals of new animal antibiotics.
The Kennedy bill also would mandate immediate withdrawal of
 fluoroquinolones from poultry production based on an October 2000
 decision by FDA seeking such a withdrawal. However, FDA has since
 agreed to an administrative hearing on that withdrawal based on
 information from Bayer Corp., the product sponsor.

The bill does not seek to limit antibiotics used to treat sick animals
or
 pets.

The antibiotics to be affected were not spelled out in the
 statement from Kennedy's office; however, the bill is thought to
 be the Senate's companion bill to legislation introduced earlier
 this year in the House. Rep. Sherrod Brown (D., Ohio)
introduced a House bill that would phase out non-therapeutic
agricultural use of eight specific antibiotics, including penicillin
and tetracycline, in farm animals over two  years.

 Brown's Preservation of Antibiotics for Human Treatment Act was
 introduced Feb. 27. It also would ban therapeutic and
 non-therapeutic uses of fluoroquinolones in poultry in six
 months. The other major antibiotics named in Brown's bill are:
macrolides
 (including erythromycin and tylosin), lincomycin, bacitracin,
 virginiamycin, animoglycosides and sufonamides. These are antibiotics
 "that are used in human medicine or are so closely related to
 human-use drugs that they trigger cross-resistance." stated Brown.

A new report on antibiotic use in agriculture was released by the
Alliance
 for the Prudent Use of Antibiotics (APUA). That report was
 published in the medical journal "Clinical Infectious Diseases"
 and called for immediate action by government and the agriculture
 industry to reduce the human health risks associated with
 antibiotic use in agriculture."There is a critical need for more timely

action to ensure that antibiotics remain effective," said Stuart B.
Levy, president of APUA. "Once the resistance in a bacterial
population reaches a certain level, reversal becomes extremely
difficult." The APUA report is available online at www.apua.org.

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