By Stephanie Soucheray
US Senator Cory Booker (D-NJ) sent a letter to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) that highlights concerns about revisions to FDA guidance on duration limits for antibiotic use in farm animals.
Booker is concerned about revisions to Guidance for Industry #152 (GFI#152) and draft Guidance for Industry #273 (draft GFI#273), which would eliminate a 21-day limit for medically important antimicrobials and instead allow the duration of use to be set on a case-by-case basis. Booker said that policy would contribute to antimicrobial resistance (AMR).
'Breeding ground for AMR'
"A primary driver of the spread of antibiotic resistance is the misuse of antibiotics in industrial animal agriculture," Booker wrote in the letter. "Concentrated animal feeding operations create a breeding ground for AMR, due to their crowded conditions and the overreliance on antibiotics to keep animals healthy in an unsanitary and disease-promoting environment.”
Booker requested answers to six questions from the FDA by September 1, 2024, on its efforts to manage the growing crisis of AMR.
In his final question, Booker asked, "What is the FDA doing to measure its progress on combating antibiotic resistance? Has the FDA adopted any indicators of success such as a [sic] reductions in antibiotic use by livestock sectors and reductions in antibiotic resistance in food animal isolates?"
Source : umn.edu