Months after President Obama unveiled his plan to phase out antibiotics in food products, the White House announced that lawmakers’ own lunches will start leading the way. Many federal cafeterias will start purchasing beef and poultry with lower quantities of antibiotics.
As part of new contract awards and renewals with the General Services Administration, vendors will provide beef and poultry from animals raised under responsible antibiotic-use policies, according to a memo released by the White House on Tuesday. The U.S. Department of Agriculture and Department of Health and Human Services will also ensure that all parties carry out the most cost-effective options. Within five years, the mandate will expand to all civilian government restaurants.
During a White House summit on antibiotic use in March, President Obama designated antibiotic overexposure as a significant public health issue, citing 23,000 deaths and two million illnesses stemming from improper antibiotic use. The issue is becoming a global health threat. In 2012, World Health Organization head Margaret Chan warned that the weakening of antibiotics would “end modern medicine as we know it.”
In recent years, attention has turned to the food industry, which uses more than 30 million pounds of antibiotics on livestock. Some food manufacturers have admitted that antibiotic overuse contributes to the mutation of common bacteria — including E.coli and Salmonella — into more drug-resistant forms.
Now, government officials are doing their part to shift toward a food system that’s less dependent on antibiotics.
“It is the policy of the Federal Government to encourage responsible uses of medically important antibiotics in the meat and poultry supply chain by supporting the emerging market for meat that has been produced according to responsible antibiotic-use policies,” the new memo reads. “This policy will build on the important work of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and antibiotic manufacturers, which are already taking substantial steps to phase out the use of medically important antibiotics in food animals.”
This move follows new Food and Drug Administration restrictions on the antibiotics given to farm animals that will require farmers and ranchers to obtain a prescription for antibiotics of medical significance to humans. The restrictions, which go into effect in December 2016, will also prevent the use of drugs to promote animal growth. “It does change the dynamic quite a bit,” William Flynn, head of the FDA’s Center for Veterinary Medicine, told the Wall Street Journal. “The goal is to affect behaviors at the farm level.”
Despite President Obama’s recent moves to curb antibiotic overuse, however, some critics say he hasn’t done enough to take food manufacturers to task. His task force on antibiotic reduction didn’t explicitly address overuse on farms in its National Strategy on Combating Antibiotic-Resistant Bacteria, which was a point of contention for many advocates. Matters worsened for the administration when an investigation found that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) allowed more than a dozen antibiotics considered high-risk to human health on the market. Democratic lawmakers — including Sen. Elizabeth Warren (MA), Dianne Feinstein (CA), and Kirsten Gillibrand (NY) — have been relentless in denouncing the FDA for its lethargic movements on food safety.
Nonetheless, there appears to be a changing tide among American consumers, who are increasingly saying that they don’t want antibiotics in their meat. In 2014, more than 90 percent of doctors polled by Consumer Reports said the antibiotic use in animals concerned them.
Perhaps thanks to shifting public opinion, the food industry is following suit. Perdue, one of the nation’s largest poultry producers, announced earlier this year that it would cease the use of human antibiotics with 95 percent of its chicken. Costco followed suit in March, telling Reuters that it would eliminate the sale of antibiotic chicken and beef. Officials at recently struggling fast-food giant McDonald’s also disclosed plans to phase out antibiotic-tainted chicken within two years. Since the early 2000s, other restaurants — including Arby’s, Chipotle, KFC, and Domino’s — have done their part to change the culture, with each highlighting the health benefits of raising produce naturally.
The White House said that it’s depending on that type of cooperation from the private sector in its quest to realize its goal of reducing outbreaks of antibiotic-resistant bacteria by at least 50 percent in the next few years. During the recent White House Forum on Antibiotic Stewardship, more than 150 food companies, retailers, hospitals, and drug companies about the prevention of antibiotic-resistant infections.
Key partners include Tyson’s Foods, which pledged to eliminate human antibiotics from is broiler chicken flock by September 2017. The food company will also work with independent farmers in its supply chain to reduce antibiotics on cattle, hog, and turkey farms. Smithfield Food, the world’s largest pork producer and processer, also started a partnership with the Virginia Tech College of Agriculture and Life Sciences and the Virginia-Maryland College of Veterinary Medicine to explore alternatives to antibiotics.
“We’re not entering the post-antibiotic world, we’re actually in it,” Sylvia Mathews Burwell, secretary of Health and Human Services, said at the White House forum. “This threat grows.”