Food & Climate
The United Nations (U.N.) released the first draft of a global plan to tackle “antibiotic use in agriculture and food”, that included a very ambitious target. But this draft which would be discussed today became fragile, what is the U.S animal drug industry role?
The first draft of a global plan to tackle antibiotic resistance that aligned with a call from world leaders’ expert advisors to take “bold and specific action”, included a commitment to reduce the use of antibiotics use in agriculture and food system by 30 percent by 2030, according a report seen by “Food & Climate” platform.
When those leaders meet at the U.N. on Thursday to adopt the Political Declaration on Antimicrobial Resistance, that concrete goal and others will be missing from the latest draft.
After months of negotiations and edits to the proposal, these ambitious—and likely effective—commitments have been replaced with a toothless target: to “strive to meaningfully reduce “antibiotic use in agriculture”.
Reducing antibiotic use in agriculture necessary
Now, experts and advocates are concerned that this new, vague provision, among other weakened commitments, will be included in the final declaration, according to “Civil eats”.
“I think it’s a serious mistake,” said Andre Delattre, the senior vice president and COO for programs at the Public Interest Network, which has advocated for reducing antibiotic use on farms as a matter of public interest for years. “We’ve known for a very long time that the overuse of antibiotics in animal agriculture is really problematic for public health. Saying we’re going to reduce without setting targets just shows we’re not as serious as we should be about the problem.”
The news comes at a pivotal moment. While the urgency of antibiotic resistance as a public health threat is well known, a new study released last week upped the ante. According to a systemic analysis of the problem, researchers predicted deaths directly caused by resistance will increase nearly 70 percent between 2022 and 2050, rising to around 2 million per year globally, with another 8 million deaths associated with the issue.
In the U.S., the largest volume of antibiotics are used in animal agriculture. Also, the preventive dosing of animals with medically important drugs—that is, drugs for treating humans—is still routine. This use of drugs can drive the development of resistant bacteria that then threaten human lives. Reducing or eliminating the use of medically important antibiotics in livestock would slow the development of resistant bacteria, experts say, safeguarding the efficacy of important drugs for longer.
“It is estimated that by 2050, as many as 10 million people globally will die annually from antibiotic-resistant infections unless the United States joins with other countries to quickly take aggressive action to address this issue.”
U.S animal drug industry objects
U.S. officials were at least partially responsible for weakening the U.N. declaration’s commitments on animal agriculture. The advocacy organization U.S. Right to Know obtained a document showing that the U.S. was one of a few meat-producing countries that suggested deleting the 2030 goal. The organization also cites the fact that a Washington, D.C. trade group representing the animal drug industry objected to the goal.
Steve Roach, the Safe & Healthy Food Program Director at Food Animal Concerns Trust (FACT), has been tracking U.S. policy on antibiotic use in agriculture for years. He said that on the international stage, he’s seen the U.S. “actively undermining” stronger policies time and time again.
“The U.S. always seems to be aiming for something weaker,” he said. For example, he said the U.S. worked to keep targets for the reduction of antibiotic use out of international food safety standards. The U.S. was also one of five countries—all top users of antibiotics in animal agriculture— that did not sign onto an earlier global agreement, called the Muscat Ministerial Manifesto on AMR, that did include targeted reductions.
However, a study was published on national library of medicine in 2018, emphasized the presence of antibiotics in animal-derived products and the phenomenon of multidrug resistance in environmental samples.
“This therefore calls for strengthening of regulations that direct antibiotic manufacture, distribution, dispensing, and prescription, hence fostering antibiotic stewardship. Joint collaboration across the world with international bodies is needed to assist the developing countries to implement good surveillance of antibiotic use and antibiotic resistance”, the study said.
The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) last April announced the launch of a new action-oriented, country-focused initiative to reduce the need for antimicrobials on farms, amid the growing threat posed by Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR) in the food and agriculture sector, impacting terrestrial and aquatic animal health, plants and the environment and causing significant economic losses to farmers across the globe.