fda-restricts-antibiotics-use

Thursday, December 12, 2013

F.D.A. Restricts Antibiotics Use for Livestock

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine 
Date: Thu, Dec 12, 2013 at 10:28 AM
Subject: re: F.D.A. Restricts Antibiotics Use for Livestock
To: "letters@nytimes.com" 

To the Editor:

  The mission of the FDA has grown over time. When it was established in 1906, it was only to certify safety. In 1962, that was expanded to safety and efficacy. Now the concern is broadened again, to preserve the usefulness of our antibiotics against the relentless evolution of resistance in pathogens. But throughout, the FDA has been a regulatory agency.  As long as the new restrictions are voluntary, they are not regulations; they are a cop-out. This is a retreat from the FDA's mission at a time when it needs to be pressing forward.

Barry Haskell Levine

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/12/health/fda-to-phase-out-use-of-some-antibiotics-in-animals-raised-for-meat.html?hpw&rref=us&_r=0