PFPC Daily - June 16, 2005

House Passes Rep. Sherrod Brown's Amendment to Ban School Lunch
Program from Buying Chicken Treated with Cipro-like Antibiotic;
Cipro's Effectiveness Compromised

WASHINGTON, June 9 /U.S. Newswire/ -- The U.S. House of
Representatives last night passed a measure to ban the
federal school lunch program from purchasing poultry treated with
Cipro-like antibiotics because this use promotes
spread of antibiotic-resistant bacteria that cause severe food
poisoning. The amendment to the Fiscal Year 2006
Agriculture appropriations bill, offered by U.S. Rep. Sherrod Brown
(D-Ohio), is similar to an amendment offered by U.S.
Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) that the Senate passed in
November 2003 as part of the Fiscal Year 2004
Agriculture appropriations bill. Similar state bills that would ban
state school lunch programs from buying chickens
treated with Cipro-like antibiotics were introduced earlier this year
in Ohio by State Sen. Robert F. Hagan (D-Youngstown,
Ohio) and in Maine by State Sen. Scott Cowger (D-Kennebec, Maine).

In October 2000, the Food and Drug Administration proposed to ban the
use of Cipro-like antibiotics in poultry. This
proposed ban included Baytril, a drug which is almost identical to
the human antibiotic Cipro. Both drugs, made by the
Pittsburgh-based Bayer Corp., are members of the fluoroquinolone
class of antibiotics. The FDA concluded that Baytril
use in poultry reduces the effectiveness of Cipro in treating
Campylobacter, the most common cause of severe bacterial
food poisoning. Cipro is a critical medicine for treating serious
cases of bacterial food poisoning in adults. Bayer has
refused to withdraw Baytril from the market and instead has fought
the proposed ban over the last four years, despite a
March ruling by an FDA administrative law judge upholding the
proposed ban. The Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention's most recent data show that in 2001 more than one in six
Campylobacter infections were resistant to
fluoroquinolones.

"Fluoroquinolone-resistant strains of Campylobacter are infecting
more and more people who respond poorly or not at all to treating
their food poisoning with fluoroquinolones," said David B. Wallinga,
M.D., MPA, senior scientist and director of the Antibiotic Resistance
Project at the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy. "We
applaud
Rep. Brown for addressing this health issue."

McDonald's, Dairy Queen, Burger King, Domino's, Hardee's, Wendy's,
Popeye's and Subway say they no longer buy chicken treated with
fluoroquinolones. Six of the top 20 poultry producers, including
Tyson, Gold Kist, ConAgra, Perdue, Foster Farms, and Claxton say they
no longer use fluoroquinolones to treat chicken for human
consumption.

"If poultry producers can meet the demand of huge restaurant chains
for chickens raised without fluoroquinolones, they should have no
trouble supplying our public schools." said Margaret Mellon, J.D.,
Ph.D., director of the Food and Environment Program at the Union of
Concerned Scientists.

Rep. Brown and U.S. Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) recently introduced
bills (H.R. 2562/ S. 742) that would phase out over two years the use
of antibiotics that are important in human medicine as animal feed
additives The American Medical Association is among 385 health,
agriculture and other groups nationwide that endorsed similar
legislation last year.

http://www.usnewswire.com/