Another Useless Antibiotic to be Approved By the FDA for Farm Animals

Another reason, among a litany of them, why the FDA cares more big business interests than your health: Just as consumers are shying away from antibiotic-infested meats with good reason, the agency is about to approve cefquinome, a drug that treats a pneumonia-like disease in cattle.

Despite objections from a dozen health organizations like the American Medical Association and a majority of the agency's own advisory panel that vetoed InterVet's request to market cefquinome last year, experts believe the FDA will approve its use anyway.

Why? A document called Guidance for Industry #152 that establishes limits for weighing threats to human health due to proposed animal drugs, just another FDA-crafted measure, experts say, that defers to the mega-pharmaceuticals and makes it too hard for the agency to vote down drugs without a direct impact to human mortality rates.

Add this latest fiasco to all the other harmful decisions the FDA has made to allow conventional meats to be sprayed with carbon monoxide and viruses and you can see a health disaster in the making.

All the more reason, you should strive to limit your meat choices to grass-fed or organic meats whenever possible.

Washington Post March 4, 2007