Bill Text: CA AB49 | 2015-2016 | Regular Session | Introduced
Bill Title: Livestock drugs: antibiotics.
Spectrum: Partisan Bill (Democrat 1-0)
Status: (Failed) 2016-02-01 - Died at Desk. [AB49 Detail]
Download: California-2015-AB49-Introduced.html
BILL NUMBER: AB 49 INTRODUCED
BILL TEXT
INTRODUCED BY Assembly Member Mullin
DECEMBER 1, 2014
An act relating to livestock drugs.
LEGISLATIVE COUNSEL'S DIGEST
AB 49, as introduced, Mullin. Livestock drugs: antibiotics.
Under existing law, the Department of Food and Agriculture is
responsible for enforcing provisions relating to the importation of
animals, milk and milk products, produce dealers, and other
agricultural regulations. Existing law requires the Secretary of Food
and Agriculture to make and enforce provisions relating to the
manufacture, sale, and use of livestock drugs.
This bill would make various legislative findings and declarations
relating to the nontherapeutic use of antibiotics in livestock, and
would declare the intent of the Legislature to enact legislation that
would address the overuse of antibiotics in livestock production.
Vote: majority. Appropriation: no. Fiscal committee: no.
State-mandated local program: no.
THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA DO ENACT AS FOLLOWS:
SECTION 1. The Legislature finds and declares all of the
following:
(a) In 1977, the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA)
concluded that feeding livestock low doses of antibiotics from
antibiotic classes that are used in human disease treatment could
promote the development of antibiotic-resistance in bacteria and pose
a risk to human health. The FDA, however, did not act in response to
these findings, despite laws requiring the agency to do so.
(b) The FDA issued voluntary guidance in December 2013 on the
nontherapeutic use of antibiotics; however, this guidance is unlikely
to significantly reduce the nontherapeutic use of antibiotics in
livestock because of a broad exemption allowing for the use of
antibiotics for disease prevention.
(c) Not only do antibiotic-resistant bacteria affect the health
of our society, but they also have a monetary impact. In 1998, the
National Academy of Sciences noted that antibiotic-resistant bacteria
generate a minimum of four to five billion dollars in costs to
United States society and individuals every year. In 2009, in a study
funded by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention,
Cook County Hospital and Alliance for Prudent Use of Antibiotics
estimated that the total health care cost of antibiotic-resistant
infections in the United States was between $16.6 billion and $26
billion annually. Societal costs from lost productivity due to
illnesses were estimated to be an additional $35 billion.
(d) In April 1999, the United States Government Accountability
Office conducted a study concluding that three strains of
microorganisms that cause foodborne illnesses or disease in humans
are resistant to antibiotics and are linked to the use of antibiotics
in animals. These microorganisms that cause foodborne illnesses or
disease in humans are resistant to antibiotics and are linked to the
use of antibiotics in animals. These microorganisms are salmonella,
campylobacter, and E. Coli.
(e) In 1999, 2006, and 2011, the United States Department of
Agriculture's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service conducted
large-scale, voluntary surveys that revealed all of the following:
(1) Eighty-four percent of grower and finisher swine farms, 83
percent of cattle feedlots, and 84 percent of sheep farms administer
antimicrobials in feed or water for either health or growth promotion
reasons.
(2) Many of the antimicrobials that were identified were
identical or closely related to drugs used in human medicine,
including tetracyclines, macrolides, bactricin, penicilllins, and
sulfonamides.
(3) These drugs are used in people to treat serious diseases,
such as pneumonia, scarlet fever, rheumatic fever, sexually
transmitted infections, and skin infections; pandemics such as
malaria and plague; and bioterrorism agents such as anthrax.
(f) In June 2002, the peer-reviewed journal, "Clinical Infectious
Diseases," published a report based on a two-year review, by experts
in human and veterinary medicine, public health, microbiology,
biostatistics, and risk analysis, of more than 500 scientific studies
on the human health impacts of antimicrobial use in agriculture. The
report recommended that antimicrobial agents should not be used in
agriculture in the absence of disease and should be limited to
therapy for diseased individual animals or prophylaxis when disease
is documented in a herd or flock.
(g) In a March 2003 report, the National Academy of Sciences
stated that a decrease in antimicrobial use in human medicine alone
will have little effect on the rise in antibiotic-resistant bacteria
and that substantial efforts must be made to decrease the
inappropriate overuse of antimicrobials in animals and agriculture.
(h) In 2010, the peer-reviewed journal, "Molecular Cell,"
published a study demonstrating that a low-dosage use of antibiotics
causes a dramatic increase in genetic mutation, raising new concerns
about the agricultural practice of using low-dosage antibiotics in
order to stimulate growth promotion and routinely prevent disease in
unhealthy conditions.
(i) In 2010, the Danish Veterinary and Food Administration
testified that the Danish ban of the nontherapeutic use of
antibiotics in food animal production resulted in a marked reduction
in antimicrobial resistance in multiple bacterial species, including
Campylobacter and Enterococci.
(j) In 2011, the FDA found that in 2010:
(1) Thirteen million five hundred thousand kilograms of
antibacterial drugs were sold for use on food animals in the United
States.
(2) Three million three hundred thousand kilograms of
antibacterial drugs were used for human health.
(3) Eighty percent of antibacterial drugs, and over 70 percent of
medically important antibacterial drugs, disseminated in the United
States were sold for use on food-producing animals, rather than being
used for human health.
(k) In 2011, a review of all scientific studies on antimicrobial
use in farm animals, published in Clinical Microbiology Reviews,
found the following:
(1) That the use of antibiotics in food-producing animals leads to
the development of reservoirs of antibiotic resistance, that
antibiotic-resistant bacteria can spread through food, water, air,
soil, and meat-industry workers, and that bacteria can share
resistance genes with each other.
(2) A ban on nontherapeutic antibiotic use in food-producing
animals would preserve the use of antibiotics for medicine.
(3) A Danish ban on nontherapeutic antibiotics in food-producing
animals resulted in little change in animal morbidity and mortality,
and only a modest increase in production cost.
(l) The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)
concluded in a recent report, "Antibiotic Resistance Threats in the
United States, 2013," that overuse or misuse of antibiotics
contributes to the spread of antibiotic resistance, whether in human
medicine or in agriculture. The CDC estimated that antibiotic
resistance causes at least 23,000 deaths and two million illnesses
every year.
(m) In 2013, the peer-reviewed journal, "The Journal of the
American Medical Association," published a study showing higher
levels of antibiotic-resistant skin and soft-tissue infections in
people living in proximity to hog farms or fields treated with swine
manure in Pennsylvania. Similarly, in 2014, the peer-reviewed
journal, "Infection Control and Hospital Epidemiology," published a
study focused on hospitalized veterans in rural areas of Iowa,
finding that people living in close proximity to a swine-feeding
operation were nearly three times as likely to have been affected by
methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) at the time of
admission to the hospital.
(n) The FDA's National Antimicrobial Resistance Monitoring System
routinely finds that retail meat products are contaminated with
bacteria that are resistant to antibiotics that are important to
human medicine.
(o) According to the American Academy of Pediatrics, "the largest
nonhuman use of antimicrobial agents is in food-producing animal
production, and most of this is in healthy animals to increase growth
or prevent diseases. Evidence now exists that these uses of
antimicrobial agents in food-producing animals have a direct negative
impact on human health and multiple impacts on the selection and
dissemination of resistance genes in animals and the environment.
Children are at increased risk of acquiring many of these infections
with resistant bacteria and are at great risk of severe complications
if they become infected."
(p) Many scientific studies confirm that the nontherapeutic use of
antibiotics in food-producing animals contributes to the development
of antibiotic-resistant bacterial infections in people.
(q) The spread of antibiotic-resistant bacteria poses a risk to
the health of Californians and reduced use of antibiotics for
livestock production is likely to reduce the risks of the rise and
spread of antibiotic-resistant bacteria through food and other
pathways, thus reducing the risk to Californians.
SEC. 2. It is the intent of the Legislature to enact legislation
that would address the overuse of antibiotics in livestock
production.
