Bill Seeks To Phase Out Over-Use Of Antibiotics In Farm Animals

It’s been almost two years since the FDA asked the farmers of America to pretty please stop pumping up their livestock with antibiotics they don’t need, and yet that amazingly seems to have had no effect. And so today, Congresswoman Louise Slaughter of New York has introduced legislation that would curb the controversial practice.
If enacted — which, honestly, isn’t terribly likely given how much money the pharmaceutical industry makes off this practice — the Preservation of Antibiotics for Medical Treatment Act [PDF] would amend the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act to effectively ban non-therapeutic use of eight classes of antibiotics — any type of penicillin, tetracycline, macrolide, lincosamide, streptogramin, aminoglycoside, sulfonamide, or cephalosporin.

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