Cows coming home

While it’s not much of a stretch to think of the U.S. government braintrust as a bunch of children hanging their heads out the windows of a school bus, giggling gleefully as they pass a field of cows, a love of the farm is not the reason the Food and Drug Administration is being pushed into choosing animal health over human. Instead, a powerful cattle antibiotic, similar to one used against difficult-to-treat human infections, is slated for FDA approval thanks to the recently implemented pharma-friendly white paper, “Guidance for Industry #152.”

Last year, the FDA ruled against InterVet Inc.’s request to market the antibiotic cefquinome for cattle use based on concerns from health groups that it would expedite the emergence of microbes resistant to the drug, which could jump to humans. Under the wording of Guidance 152, the FDA can’t consider cefquinome’s impact on humans in their decision outside of showing proof that its ingestion could directly cause illness.

According to a recent InterVet release, similar antibiotics have been used in animals in Europe for a decade “without compromising the interests of public health.” What their statement fails to mention is that European studies show resistance to the drug class has increased to the point where, in some cases, it has become useless.

by Scott Saxon