China's Ministry of AgricultureOften the target of criticism when it comes to food safety problems run amuck, China may be ahead of the United States when it comes to taking steps to tackle antibiotic resistance.
According to an agribusiness news publishing site, China will soon begin implementing a ban on antibiotics in animal agriculture that are used specifically to fatten up livestock (rather than preventing illness):
China's Ministry of Agriculture has announced a forthcoming ban on antibiotics as growth promoters in animal feed.
The ban is supported by the academic community, which believes that without antibiotics in animal feed, the health of animals will be better promoted, microbes' resistance to antibiotics will be lowered and food will become safer to eat.
Recent statistics show that in 2006 China produced 210,000 tons of antibiotics, and 97,000 tons were added to animal feed. Today it is estimated that 400,000 tons are produced annually.
If China is truly going to enforce such a ban (and it's a little curious, as Maryn McKenna points out in Wired Magazine, as to why there hasn't been more news coverage of this), it would be quite a milestone.
Daily antibiotic doses in animal feed became a result of the growing industrialized food system, where crowded factory farms can mass-produce cheap meat and sell it worldwide. But even China, the top producer of pork and second in poultry, is acknowledging the threat of industry practices on public health.
Why is the U.S. so far behind on this issue? As FIC blogged last month, the USDA and FDA have barely made a healthy attempt to assess whether antibiotic overuse in agriculture has produced "superbugs," let alone do anything about it.
You'd think that the increasing occurrence of foodborne illness outbreaks connected to antibiotic-resistant bacteria would be enough to take action. The USDA confirmed recently that the strain present in the outbreak involving Cargill's ground turkey -- responsible for sickening at least 129 people and killing one -- was Salmonella Heidelberg, which is resistant to several commonly prescribed antibiotics including ampicillin, gentamicin, streptomycin and tetracycline.
It's not as if China is spearheading this effort, either. The European Union banned growth-promoting antibiotics in animal agriculture back in 2006. That didn't seem to have much influence on U.S. decision-making. But if China (whose food safety system I dubbed merely a blown-up version of the problems we face here in the states) will even sacrifice that which helps make Big Ag an economic powerhouse, that says a lot about the stubbornness of U.S. agencies to hold agribusiness accountable.
For the sake of public health, America needs to stop being immobile on this issue and put food integrity first -- for a change.
Sarah Damian is New Media Associate for the Government Accountability Project, the nation's leading whistleblower advocacy organization.
