WP: FDA Rules Override Warnings About Drug (Antibiotic Cattle)

[RamboLiberal]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/03/AR2007030301311.html

The government is on track to approve a new antibiotic to treat a pneumonia-like disease in cattle, despite warnings from health groups and a majority of the agency's own expert advisers that the decision will be dangerous for people.

The drug, called cefquinome, belongs to a class of highly potent antibiotics that are among medicine's last defenses against several serious human infections. No drug from that class has been approved in the United States for use in animals.

The American Medical Association and about a dozen other health groups warned the Food and Drug Administration that giving cefquinome to animals would probably speed the emergence of microbes resistant to that important class of antibiotics, as has happened with other drugs. Those super-microbes could then spread to people.

Echoing those concerns, the FDA's advisory board last fall voted to reject the request by InterVet Inc. of Millsboro, Del., to market the drug for cattle.

Yet by all indications, the FDA will approve cefquinome this spring. That outcome is all but required, officials said, by a recently implemented "guidance document" that codifies how to weigh the threats to human health posed by proposed new animal drugs.

[Cobalt Violet]

1. Big Beef is will to kill us all for larger profits.

Nasty Greed Idiots.

[KT2000]

2. the label should require

photos of infected limbs people have had removed because of the anti-biotic resistant bacteria that causes it.
People go to the hospital to have a baby or be treated for heart attack and come out with no arms or legs.
Good to see the FDA is concerned for our health over industrial farming's profits.

[leftchick]

3. the world would be a better place if people quit eating meat

all meat.

[pokercat999]

4. What you said. leftchick. Amen sister.

[donsu]

6. kick

nt

[fed-up]

5. KNOW YOUR FOOD-kick and rec n/t

[Shallah Kali]

7. So good to know that Corporate Farms with unclean practices are more important than actual humans

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070304/hl_nm/antibiotic_cattle_dc;_ylt=AsqB1aPFMRdCLpNkjc4z4GBa24cA

InterVet developed cefquinome to treat bovine respiratory disease, the most common disease in cattle. But more than a dozen antibiotics are on the market for the respiratory syndrome, and all are still effective.

The disease becomes a problem for cattle raised on intensive farms, and when they are packed into trains for shipment.

In January, New York Democratic Rep. Louise Slaughter, a Democrat who chairs the U.S. House of Representatives Rules Committee, sent the FDA a letter asking it not to approve the drug. She is a microbiologist.

"Over the past several years, the integrity of the FDA's drug review process has been called into question amid allegations that your agency has put the interests of industry and politics above science," Slaughter wrote at the time.

Thank you FDA for proving me right to give up beef years ago!

[Cerridwen]

8. Struggle with whom about what?

The wording of "Guidance for Industry #152" was crafted within the FDA after a long struggle. In the end, the agency adopted language that, for drugs like cefquinome, is more deferential to pharmaceutical companies than is recommended by the World Health Organization. (quoted from the article, emphasis added)

*sigh*

When do I get to trust the FDA is looking our for the safety of all the people of the U.S. rather than just the monied few?

[ftr23532]

9. Here are some fun-facts about Bayer and Baytril (which is referenced in the article)

Bayer made Baytril, the powerful antibiotic that was approved for use in poultry until drug-resistant strains of bacteria started popping up in humans.

Here's a couple of Bayer fun-facts:
-From 1898 through 1910, cough medicine http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heroin">was a kid's best friend: "From 1898 through to 1910 heroin was marketed as a non-addictive morphine substitute and cough medicine for children. Bayer marketed heroin as a cure for morphine addiction before it was discovered that heroin is converted to morphine when metabolized in the liver. The company was somewhat embarrassed by this new finding and it became a historical blunder for Bayer."

-Bayer, is one of the companies that emerged after WWII from the I.G. Farben industrial giant that formed by the backbone of the Nazi war machine.

-In 1984, Bayer introduced a version of a blood-clotting drug from hemophiliacs that was heat-treated to kill HIV. I continued selling old-non-treated stocks of the drug, http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/05/22/health/main555154.shtml">leading to HIV infections in a number of countries.

-A few days after 9/11, Bayer http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=FB0A1EFA3A5C0C778DDDA00894D9404482&n=Top%2FReference%2FTimes+Topics%2FPeople%2FK%2FKapner%2C+Suzanne">defied expectations decided not to sell off its pharmaceutical division that had seen its stock drop 30% from its high. Five days later the still-unsolved http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2001_anthrax_attacks">anthrax attacks began and Bayer's stock rallied heavily as a result of its holdings of Cipro patent.

-And coming full circle, Cipro is http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4777277">a close chemical cousin of Baytril, the drug that http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4777277">was approved for use in poultry until 2005. Yay!

For this and many more Bayer fun-facts, check out Dave Emory's http://wfmu.org/listen.ram?show=7917">FTR#411—The Bayer Facts—I.G. Farben and the Politics of Murder.

Enjoy! :-)