Ouch! The Food and Drug Administration was royally displeased with Washington Post reporter Rick Weiss’s story Sunday about how the agency was just about to rubber stamp approve, after careful deliberation, the antibiotic cefquinome for use in treating cattle. Weiss wrote that the FDA was proceeding full speed ahead even though the American Medical Association and many other health groups had warned “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.”
Having read this news before my Sunday morning coffee — and already irritated by the FDA’s “the corporation is always right” attitude about feces-contaminated food recalls — I proceeded to open a shrill can o’ whup ass on the agency. I’m sure several members of Congress were startled by the FDA’s stance, too, such as New York Democratic Rep. Louise Slaughter, who in January wrote the FDA asking it not to approve the drug. Slaughter has cred: a degree in microbiology and a master’s in public health.
According to a Reuters report posted on the Environmental News Network (via the Daily Table), the FDA immediately denied on Sunday that it ever said it was close to approving the drug for bovine use. “The Washington Post article made assumptions and drew conclusions that are premature and irresponsible,” the FDA supposedly said in a statement. “At this time, the FDA has made no decision regarding the marketing application for cefquinome.”
I say “supposedly” because while this is slugged Reuters, but I can’t find it anywhere on Reuters.com or elsewhere on the Web, nor can I find the FDA’s “strongly worded statement” on the agency’s website. And I really wanted to find the actual rebuttal, because the excerpts from it are so delectable: “It is inappropriate for the Washington Post to mislead readers, particularly with the article’s headline and lead, by insinuating that the agency has made a decision when we have not.” In faceless government-speak, that’s a throw-down.
So, if the pushback is real, let’s hope the FDA listens to its own experts and upholds its stated mission to protect “the public health by assuring the safety, efficacy, and security of human and veterinary drugs.” Note that humans come first in that sentence. Let’s try treating this illness in cows by eliminating, not medicating, the crowded factory-farm conditions that cause it.
Food, Farming, & Food Politics events calendar
Humor:
March 7th, 2007 at 10:14 pm
Rick Weiss, the author of the article discussed above, was “Live Online” at the Post website on Monday. The very interesting discussion is here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/discussion/2007/03/04/DI2007030400344.html
(free registration required)