Ralph Report

New FDA Numbers Reveal Food Animals Consume Lion’s Share of Antibiotics

Thu, 23 Dec 2010 00:00:00 -0500

Antibiotics, one of the world’s greatest medical discoveries, are slowly losing their effectiveness in fighting bacterial infections and the massive use of the drugs in food animals may be the biggest culprit. The growing threat of antibiotic resistance is largely due to the misuse and overuse of antibiotics in both people and animals, which leads to an increase in “super-bacteria”. However, people use a much smaller portion of antibiotics sold in this country compared to the amount set aside for food animals. In fact, according to new data just released by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), of the antibiotics sold in 2009 for both people and food animals almost 80% were reserved for livestock and poultry. A huge portion of those antibiotics were never intended to fight bacterial infections, rather producers most likely administered them in continuous low-dosages through feed or water to increase the speed at which their animals grew. And that has many public health experts and scientists troubled.
For years scientists concerned about the threat of antibiotic resistant bacteria in food animal production have been trying to figure out just how much antibiotics producers are using each year. The best they could do was come up with rough estimates. That is because the data was never publicly available, until now.
In accordance with a 2008 amendment to the Animal Drug User Fee Act, for the first time the FDA released last week an annual amount of antimicrobial drugs sold and distributed for use in food animals. The grand total for 2009 is 13.1 million kilograms or 28.8 million pounds. I found the stories covering this revelation interesting, but they did not convey the whole picture. It is important to understand how this amount compares to the total available for people. So, I decided to find out for myself and contacted the FDA for an estimate of the volume of antibiotics sold for human use in 2009. This is what a spokesperson told me:
“Our Office of Surveillance and Epidemiology just finished an analysis based on IMS Health data. Sales data in kilograms sold for selected antibacterial drugs were obtained as a surrogate of human antibacterial drug use in the U.S. market. Approximately 3.3 million kilograms of antibacterial drugs were sold in year 2009. OSE states that all data in this analysis have been cleared for public use by IMS Health, IMS National Sales Perspectives™.”
3.3 million kilograms is a little over 7 million pounds. As far as I can determine, this is the first time the FDA has made data on estimates of human usage public. Below is a breakdown of the FDA numbers prepared by my colleague, Dr. David Love, also from the Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future, which compares the estimated amounts of human usage with food animal usage.
Take a look at the data for tetracycline. More than 10 million pounds of the antibiotic were sold for the use in food animals. That’s more than all of the antibiotics combined set aside for humans in 2009. Many studies suggest the high use of tetracycline in food animals, particularly in pigs, has lead to the increased rates of bacterial resistance to the antibiotic, such as Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus or MRSA.

Despite this new information, the hog industry denies the suggestion that it is overusing antibiotics. In response to the FDA’s report, the National Pork Producers Council also pointed out to Food Safety News’ Helena Bottemiller that, “ionophores … are not used in human medicine, they don’t have anything to do with the effectiveness of antibiotics in people.” That statement is inaccurate. All uses of antibiotics have the potential to decrease the effectiveness of antibiotics in people. Ionophores are no exception. While several industry funded studies determined that ionophore use in animals is “not likely” to transfer resistance from animals to people, researchers couldn’t come to a definitive conclusion because ionophores can lead to bacterial resistance to the antibiotic bacitracin, which is commonly used to treat skin and eye infections.
Every time an antibiotic is used there is a risk of adding to the growing pool of antibiotic resistance. LivableFutureBlog readers might recall an October blog post in which Dr. Ellen Silbergeld, professor of environmental health sciences at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, warned that, “Bacteria respond to chemical structures, not brand names, and resistance to one member of a pharmaceutical class results in cross resistance to all other members of the same class.” Silbergeld says when bacteria develop resistance to one member of that class of antibiotics it can be resistant to all.
So, what is the government doing to ensure we don’t squander the effectiveness of antibiotics for human use on the production of food animals? Since President Barack Obama took office, the FDA says it has taken several steps. Dr. Joshua Sharfstein, Principal Deputy Commissioner of the FDA, took a stand last year by stating that the Administration, “supports ending the use of antibiotics for growth and feed efficiency” in food animals. However, instead of requiring industry take action, the FDA released a draft-guidance last June that essentially asks industry to voluntarily end the use of antibiotics as growth promoters in food animals and include veterinary oversight or consultation on all antibiotic use.
Lawmakers such as Congresswoman Louise Slaughter and Senator Barbara Boxer have been introducing versions of the Preservation of Antibiotics for Medical Treatment Act (PAMTA) for more than a decade that would mandate antibiotic use changes in food animals. Earlier this year it looked like the bill had a good chance of passing, but the bill failed to make it to the floor of the House or Senate. While not perfect, PAMTA would ban the use of medically important antibiotics as growth promoters. Passage of PAMTA would be an important step in saving the potency of antibiotics for human use. However, the current version of the bill could be stronger if it followed more closely the recommendations from the Pew Commission on Industrial Farm Animal Production final report, which calls for a ban on the non-therapeutic use of all antibiotics, not just those considered medically important, in food animals.
Now that we officially know that food animals use an overwhelming majority of our antibiotics, I hope it is more clear to everyone that legislation limiting the overuse and misuse of antibiotics in livestock and poultry must be passed. The next battle, which industry has already begun, is defining what non-therapeutic use will constitute. Producers are already claiming that the use of antibiotics for growth promotion has decreased, maintaining current low-dose usage is aimed at disease prevention. Regardless, all low-dose usage of antibiotics can lead to a significant increase in antibiotic resistance. As Dr. Alexander Fleming, the discoverer of penicillin warned, “It is not difficult to make microbes resistant to penicillin in the laboratory by exposing them to concentrations not sufficient to kill them, and the same thing has occasionally happened in the body.”

Public Health Campaign & Celebrity Chef Help Franciscan Center Serve Dignity With Its Meals

Mon, 27 Sep 2010 16:30:50 -0400

I had to share a news release that the Franciscan Center of Baltimore sent out today regarding its launch of a Healthy Monday campaign.

For Immediate Release:

September 27, 2010

Public Health Campaign & Celebrity Chef Help Franciscan Center Serve Dignity With Its Meals

The Franciscan Center of Baltimore, in partnership with The Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future (CLF), kicked off its own Healthy Monday campaign today to promote healthy food choices among its clients. The goal: to ensure that everyone, regardless of their socio-economic status, has access to safe, nutritious and delicious meals. With the help of celebrity chef Kim O’Donnel and CLF’s two outreach projects, Baltimore Food and Faith and the Johns Hopkins Healthy Monday Project, the Franciscan Center wants to show that providing a large variety of high quality foods for Baltimore’s hungry not only promotes dignity among its clients, but may also improve their health.

The Franciscan Center has a long legacy of feeding the poor and homeless in Baltimore. The Center serves as many as 500 meals a day. So far it has served 78 thousand meals this year alone. In an effort to promote personal dignity through healthy and sustainable living, the Franciscan Center has partnered with various local farmers, businesses, groups and organizations like CLF, the Abell Foundation, Campus Kitchens, First Fruit Farms and Wegmans Supermarket to bring healthy, organic produce and vegetables to Baltimore’s most needy in an attempt to increase the personal health of an at risk population.

According to Baltimore’s Food Policy Task Force Final Report, “Many Baltimore City residents are affected by health problems associated with a poor diet.” The Task Force also found that one in every three adults in Baltimore is obese and two out of three is considered overweight. Ed McNally, Franciscan Center Executive Director, believes that, “if we can increase the nutrition content in the food served to the City’s poorest and most disadvantaged citizens -- many with or at risk for contracting disease -- then we will positively impact public health.

Saint Francis of Assisi said, “It is not fitting, when one is in God's service, to have a gloomy face or a chilling look.” McNally added today that the Franciscan Center believes, “that you can’t serve an unhealthy meal with a smile. It is the next step; there is nothing more dignified than a nutritious meal.” Rev. Dred Scott, Pastor of St. Matthew United Methodist Church in Turner Station agrees. "At St. Matthew we are always looking at quality of life issues,” says Rev. Scott. He believes that, “if you are what you eat, then eating healthy and having access to healthy, nutritional food is a must. Our community garden has provided fresh produce to a substantial number of people in the community over the past several years at no cost." Rev. Scott and McNally are both members of CLF’s Baltimore Food and Faith advisory board.

O’Donnel, a trained chef and author of the newly released “Meat Lover’s Meatless Cookbook,” took time off from her book tour to share recipes and some cooking tips with the Franciscan Center’s two full-time cooks today. O’Donnel says, “I was proud to take part in today’s event. Food is such an integral part of everyone’s life. Helping to promote the idea that everyone deserves access to healthy delicious food is very important to me.”

“Launching Healthy Monday has been a challenge,” says Kim Greggory, Franciscan Center cook. “But by bringing in experts, like Chef O’Donnel, to teach us how to prepare healthier balanced lunches, I’ve been able to not only better prepare fresh vegetables, but I take that knowledge home and feed my own family better,” added Greggory.

O’Donnel has long supported Healthy Monday and Meatless Monday through her columns at the Washington Post and several popular blogs. Healthy Monday is a public health initiative whose goal is to prevent chronic diseases by offering people weekly prompts to start and sustain healthy behaviors, such as making healthy food choices. The Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future, based at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, serves as technical and scientific advisor for Healthy Monday and its sister campaign Meatless Monday. McNally says Meatless Monday is just the first of many Healthy Monday programs the Franciscan Center plans to promote throughout the year.

Additional information can be found on the following web pages:

The Franciscan Center: http://www.franciscancenterbaltimore.org/
Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future: http://www.jhsph.edu/clf
Healthy Monday: http://www.healthymonday.org/
Kim O’Donnel: http://www.kimodonnel.com/

Antibiotic Resistance in Food Animals: FDA Takes Strong Stance, But Public Health May Remain At Risk Until Congress Acts

Wed, 7 Jul 2010 22:30:10 -0400

Leadership at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) made it abundantly clear last week that the low-dose usage of antibiotics in food animals, simply to promote growth or improve feed efficiency, needlessly contributes to the emergence of antibiotic resistant bacteria and poses a serious threat to public health. Despite the fact that the FDA is taking a hard-line stance on the issue, I find it frustrating to see that the agency appears to be hamstrung from taking the necessary steps to mandate industry end the risky practice. Even more exasperating, is that it appears that the FDA may actually relax a current directive that already regulates antibiotic use. However, unlike many critics I don’t believe that this is an example of the Obama administration buckling under industry pressure. Rather, I view it as a loud and stern call for Congress to take action. Producers concerned more about profit than protecting public health are not going to cut their dependence on non-therapeutic antibiotic use in food animals unless lawmakers pass strict legislation.

On June 28, the FDA fired a serious warning shot across the bow of industrial food animal producers stating in a new draft guidance that it expects industry to change its antibiotic use practices. The draft guidance asks for two simple things: stop using “medically important” antibiotics as growth promoters, limiting use to only treating sick animals; and ensure that producers do not administer these drugs without veterinary supervision. Unfortunately, the FDA says guidance documents, “do not establish legally enforceable responsibilities.” Why didn’t leadership go a step further and issue a proposed rule? I’ll address the possible answer in a moment. But what has me scratching my head are discussions about potentially changing a current medicated animal feed rule that’s already on the books.

The FDA recently sent out a notice warning that it might modify its veterinary feed directive (VFD), citing informal complaints that the rule is “overly burdensome.” The VFD was issued 10 years ago in response to the passage of the Animal Drug Availability Act of 1996, which required the FDA to regulate the approval and marketing of new animal drugs and medicated feeds. Any medicated feed that falls under the VFD category can only be used under the supervision of a veterinarian. According to the American Veterinary Medical Association’s website “the purpose of the added professional control is to reduce the rate of development of [antimicrobial] resistance and thereby prolong the period of effectiveness of the medication.” It is important to note that the VFD only applies to new drugs and that feeds containing approved antibiotics before 2000 can and are sold over-the-counter without a prescription or supervision of a veterinarian.

So, if the FDA Principal Deputy Commissioner Joshua Sharfstein went out on a limb to call the overuse of antibiotics in food animals, “an urgent public health issue,” why would the FDA consider changing a 10-year-old rule that could relax regulation of antibiotic use even further? That’s exactly what the American Academy of Pediatrics, The Pew Charitable Trusts, Union of Concerned Scientists, Institute for Agriculture and Trade, Food and Animal Concerns Trust and Humane Society of the United States want to know. Back in May the organizations sent a list of specific questions to FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg regarding the Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (ANPR):

·      From whom did the [overly burdensome] comments come – the industrial farming industry, veterinarians, or other stakeholders?

·      The FDA suggests that the ANPR is being undertaken to help “improve the program’s efficiency.” Since the primary requirement of the program is that veterinarians provide oversight on the use of certain drugs, does improved program efficiency simply mean less meaningful oversight from licensed veterinarians?

·      How is the ANPR consistent with Deputy Commissioner Joshua Sharfstein’s July 13, 2009, testimony that, “protecting public health requires the judicious use in animal agriculture of those antimicrobials of importance in human medicine…FDA also believes that use of medications for prevention and control should be under the supervision of a veterinarian?” (emphasis added)

Late last month the FDA decided to extend the comment period on the ANPR for an additional 60 days, after receiving complaints that the original 90-day comment period was not enough time to develop “meaningful or thoughtful response.” That means the public now has until August 27 to speak up. If you’re interested in writing a response you may first want to read a new study published in PLoS One which links antibiotic use on veal calf farms in the Netherlands to a new strain of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus – ST398 (a.k.a. Staph superbug.) The authors say this is the first study that shows “direct association between animal and human carriage of ST398,” and that this latest revelation warrants the prudent use of antibiotics on the farm.

While I don’t want to see the VFD weakened in any way, I am more concerned about the medicated feeds that are not covered under the directive. Which is pretty much everything except the two drugs that have been placed under the VFD category. The Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) estimated in 2001 that as much as 70 percent of all the antibiotics sold in the U.S. were used to promote growth in food animals. And yes, there are plenty of cases of irresponsible antibiotic use going on in people, but it doesn’t compare to the amount in animals. The UCS claims “nearly 13 million pounds [of antibiotics] per year – are used in animal agriculture for these non-therapeutic purposes. This amount is estimated to be more than four times the amount of drugs used to treat human illness.”

Of course industry disputes this claim. The Animal Health Institute – an organization that lobbies for pharmaceutical companies such as Bayer, Pfizer and Novartis – told the New York Times that it estimated only “13 percent of agricultural antibiotics were used to promote growth.” As Times reporter Gardiner Harris keenly pointed out, if the FDA, “some day bans growth promotion as a use, there is a chance producers would simply relabel such uses as preventative.”

While serving as the communications director for the Pew Commission on Industrial Farm Animal Production my colleagues and I met with AHI staff in 2006 to discuss antibiotic use in food animals. They were trying to “redefine” therapeutic and non-therapeutic uses of antibiotics even back then. They presented us with similar statistics. It wasn’t until we started discussing the use of antibiotics to prevent production diseases, such as liver abscesses in feedlot cattle (ruminants, designed to eat forage such as grass or hay, that are finished on grain can develop several metabolic and infectious diseases), that we began to realize they were lumping the use of antibiotics to make up for poor living conditions and animal husbandry in the same therapeutic category. There are some hard-liners who would argue medicating animals to prevent “production diseases” should not fall under the “therapeutic” category as well. Keep in mind, regardless of the definition, these low-dose treatments can still lead to the emergence of antibiotic resistant bacteria. And FYI, studies reveal cattle switched from grain-based diets to hay were less likely to shed the deadly antibiotic resistant bacteria E. coli O157:H7.

So, why hasn’t the FDA called for an outright ban? Industry has thwarted the agency’s attempts to end the non-therapeutic use of antibiotics for more than three decades. If history were any indicator, a call for a new ban would most likely end with the same fate. I am certain that if FDA leadership decided to release a draft directive last week, rather than a draft guidance, industry would already be preparing to take the FDA to court. At best, a court action could tie up any rule for years; at worst, it could set back future regulations by another decade or more. That’s why public health will remain at risk until Congress takes action and passes legislation designed to end the practice once and for all.

While it is not perfect, there is proposed legislation on the table right now entitled the Preservation of Antibiotics for Medical Treatment Act (PAMTA). Congresswoman Louise Slaughter introduced the latest version of PAMTA last March. The bill calls for:

·      Phase out the non-therapeutic use in livestock of medically important antibiotics;

·      Require this same tough standard of new applications for approval of animal antibiotics;

·      Does not restrict use of antibiotics to treat sick animals or to treat pets and other animals not used for food.

More than 300 organizations including the Center for a Livable Future, American Public Health Association, American Medical Association, and National Association of County and City Health Officials support the passage of the PAMTA.

The American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA) is vehemently opposed to PAMTA. Dr. Michael Blackwell, public health veterinarian and vice chair of the Pew Commission on Industrial Farm Animal Production, says that to his knowledge, “the AVMA remains the only major medical or public health organization not recommending changes in agriculture practices to help ensure sustainability where the use of antimicrobials is concerned.”
Dr. Raymond Tarpley, AVMA member and retired Texas A&M professor, recently submitted a post for the Livable Future Blog imploring the AVMA to change its stance on antimicrobial use in food animals. The AVMA and industrial food animal producers claim that the benefits of low-dose antibiotic use to efficient production and food safety outweigh the risk of developing more antibiotic resistance. Dr. Tarpley says that view, however, is only valid in the context of the current unhealthy industrial animal production environment:

… where disease risks can be heightened and growth rate performance reduced by stressors such as poor ventilation and hygiene, inadequate temperature regulation and animal crowding interfering with natural behaviors. Elevated risks have led to a dependence on low-dose antimicrobials to compensate for these suboptimal husbandry practices made worse by large numbers of animals producing large quantities of untreated wastes that often trigger respiratory distress in a microbially rich environment.

When it comes to the FDA’s draft guidance on antibiotic use in food animals, the fact that FDA leadership is willing to take a hard-line stance on such a politically charged issue is commendable. I understand the argument that change takes time and that the agency must be methodical in its approach, especially when the powerful food animal and pharmaceutical industries will do everything they can to thwart it. However, timing is everything. If the FDA believes it cannot take a stronger stance now, then Congress must move on PAMTA. As Congress faces another potential shift in control, if PAMTA fails passage this year, I fear it could be another decade before we see an end to the irresponsible use of antibiotics in animal agriculture, and by then it might be too little too late.

Eat Less Meat, Eat Better Meat

Tue, 8 Jun 2010 19:40:29 -0400

The list of Meatless Monday supporters continues to grow across the globe, and surprisingly to some, many of the latest enthusiasts make their living either cooking meat, such as chef Mario Batali or producing it, like rancher Nicolette Hahn Niman. What makes Meatless Monday so successful is its simple and inclusive message which promotes moderation with the goal of improving public health and the health of the planet.

Nicolette and her husband Bill run the BN Ranch in Northern California near the seaside raising heritage turkeys and beef cattle on pasture. Bill knows a thing or two about ranching. He founded the famous Niman Ranch Inc. known for its sustainable and humanely raised meats. Nicolette is a Renaissance woman of sorts—new mom, writer, environmental lawyer, and interestingly, a vegetarian.

I recently was able to catch Nicolette for a few minutes by phone to ask her why she and Bill support Meatless Monday. She made it clear that she didn’t have much time; she was in the midst of a writing project, running the ranch (Bill was traveling) and taking care of her 14-month-old son who I could hear in the background chatting and occasionally clinking the keys of their piano. Knowing that time was short; I got straight to the point:

RL: A lot of people mistakenly believe that the Meatless Monday campaign is promoting the demise of all meat production, while it has always maintained that its message is simply one of moderation and inclusion of omnivores and vegetarians alike. As a rancher yourself, what would you say to any farmer who is threatened by the MM campaign?

NHN: Bill and I are very supportive of the Meatless Monday campaign and here’s why: We think that to really improve the way food is being produced and the way people are eating in this country people should eat less meat but eat better meat. All food from animals—meat, dairy, fish, eggs—should be treated as something special. Anyone who is raising food animals in the traditional healthy way, without relying on industrial methods, drugs and chemicals, is someone who will benefit from people embracing that approach. We think the Meatless Monday campaign is part of a shift in attitudes about meat, towards something that is precious not something that is consumed without thought or in enormous quantities.

RL: You just wrote an interesting piece in the Atlantic entitled “Can Meat Eaters Also Be Environmentalists?” Well, can they?

NHN: Yes, definitely. The idea that it is a contradiction to be a meat eater and an environmentalist is just a misunderstanding of the most ecologically sound food production systems, which, in my view, definitely involve animals. There has been a lot of media attention to the idea that meat [production] is environmentally damaging. That’s because of bad practices that are rampant and widespread, such as total confinement systems with liquefied manure, use of hormones, feeding of antibiotics. The evidence is now irrefutable that these practices endanger the environment and public health. I’ve spent most of the last 10 years highlighting those problems to the public. But that is totally different than saying that raising farm animals is inherently environmentally damaging, which just isn’t true. I’ve been doing a lot of research into the role that animals play in rebuilding soils, and how grazing pastures are far better than any other agricultural land use in terms of erosion and in carbon sequestration. One thing I’ve become convinced of is that the best farming mimics nature, and natural ecosystems are all built on the relationships of sunshine, water, plants, and animals. So, I would say that actually the most environmentally sound diet includes some meat, dairy, and eggs.

RL: Is it important to point out that the majority of the meat products people eat in America are produced on industrial farms? Would you agree with that?

NHN: Much of the meat—most, actually—that is being produced and consumed in the United States today is being produced in environmentally damaging ways. I do not endorse any of those systems. In fact, I explicitly and strongly oppose them. That’s totally different than the fundamental question of whether or not meat is environmentally damaging per se and people are confusing those issues all over the place.

RL: Back in November you posted a must-read eater’s guide on how to avoid industrially produced foods in the Huffington Post. Could you give us a few quick pointers or the most important things you would tell people?

NHN: Yes. It was a long article, and hard to summarize in just a few words. But I’d say the most important thing is to try to just get closer to the source of your food, try to learn how and where your food was produced. The easiest ways to do that are to try to buy directly from farmers through farmers’ markets, community supported agriculture programs [CSAs], farm stands, and any place where you can get food directly from a farmer. Even in those places, I still encourage people to talk with the farmer about how the food is being produced, not to assume that it’s being raised in the way that you want it to be. Recently I’ve been saying, “I try to get all my food from a place I’d enjoy visiting.” That kind of sums up my approach. I also think that growing some of your own food is a great way to get out of the industrial system. So, people can have a vegetable garden, even if they just have a terrace or a fire escape where they can have a flowerpot with some tomatoes and some herbs. You know, just starting to do a little bit. And if you have a yard why not have a garden, maybe have a flock of egg-laying hens? I think it makes a big difference to just start taking baby-steps away from the industrial food system. Anything to get involved with how your food is produced. Eating is something that most of us tend to do without much thought. The more you start paying attention to it you realize it’s something worth investing time in. Building delicious, healthy meals ends up being something that is incredibly rewarding and not a chore.

RL: What is your advice to people who would rather not eat industrially produced foods but are limited either by higher costs or easy access?

NHN: Well, that is challenging because the whole industrial model has been successful at creating food that is cheap in terms of its cost at the grocery checkout. But our food is also cheap in the other sense of the word, in that it’s lacking in quality; these days it’s less nutritious, less safe, and less healthful than ever before. Generally one does pay more for food that is raised on traditional and/or organic farms. Here again, raising some of your own food to the extent possible is one way to eat good food affordably. Also, doing more of your own cooking and baking as opposed to buying prepared foods helps make good food affordable, because whole ingredients tend to be cheaper than prepared foods. And then some tricks for [saving money on] vegetables and fruits especially [includes] eating things when they are in season. In the season of abundance the cost tends to go down. You especially notice that when you are buying directly from farmers, because in the season of plenty they usually have more than they can handle and the prices are lower. When you are talking about things like meat, learning how to use some of the less popular cuts, cuts that are no less flavorful or nutritious, is a great way to save some money. My husband, Bill, who really knows meat, always talks about that. He says that some of the tastiest and most nutritious cuts of meat are some of the most underappreciated. They are often a lot cheaper.

RL: You’ve gained quite of bit of praise for your book, “Righteous Porkchop, Finding A Life And Good Food Beyond Factory Farms.” Michael Pollan is quoted as saying your book is, “A searing, and utterly convincing, indictment of modern meat production. But the book brims with hope, too, and charts a practical (and even beautiful) path out of the jungle.” You couldn’t have paid for a better endorsement. Instead of focusing on the indictment part, could you tell me more about the hope that he mentioned?

NHN: Yes, I like focusing on the hope, too. A lot of my book is about farmers that are doing things the right way from the standpoint of the environment, animal welfare, and human health. I firmly believe that it’s a myth that this country cannot feed itself with traditional, non-industrialized farming. A lot of my book is dedicated to disproving that myth and proving that traditional, sustainable farms are economically viable. And I just tell the stories and describe what a lot of those farmers are doing, as well as presenting the economic data to show that it’s an economically viable system. But I think it is really important to keep in mind that our country is heavily subsidizing with public dollars the current form of industrial agriculture. If we really want a sustainable healthful food system we need to take the dollars that we are putting into agriculture and shift it towards good methods. I support the use of public funds for agriculture, but I don’t understand why we’re not putting it towards a food system that is environmentally benign and producing healthy food.

Chefs Move to Improve Kids Health

Fri, 4 Jun 2010 00:00:00 -0400

History was made today in Washington, DC as hundreds of chefs from more than 37 states descended on the South Lawn of the White House in hopes of accomplishing one thing -- bringing an end to childhood obesity. Each of these gastronomical experts answered the call of First Lady Michelle Obama to adopt a school in their community and share their knowledge and passion for food. The Chefs Move To Schools program, a project of the First Lady’s Let’s Move campaign, was conceived by White House Assistant Chef Sam Kass, the man behind the White House garden. So far, Kass says almost 1,000 chefs have signed up to be a part of the ambitious initiative.

Perhaps one of the most famous volunteers to take part in today’s event was celebrity-chef Rachel Ray. Ray has long championed the fight against childhood obesity. In 2006, she launched her own non-profit organization, Yum-O!, designed to “empower kids and their families to develop healthy relationships with food and cooking.” Not afraid to get her hands dirty, Ray joined the First Lady, fellow chefs and students from a nearby elementary school in harvesting veggies from the White House garden. Graciously, Ray took a few moments to answer a few questions from me.

Coming up Monday, complete coverage of the Chefs Move To Schools program and more inspiring words from the First Lady, Sam Kass and several other trailblazing chefs from Maryland to Haiti.

Ensuring Every American Child Has Access to Healthy and Affordable Food: A “Gentle” Wish For a New Decade

Tue, 12 Jan 2010 20:36:34 -0500

Knowing that the obesity epidemic in the United States has some scientists predicting that for the first time in history American children will live shorter lives than their parents, my wish for the next decade is to see First Lady Michelle Obama, President Barack Obama and his administration succeed in their mission to ensure that every American child has access to healthy and affordable food. A recent gathering of Obama Administration officials invited to discuss their efforts to improve America’s food system left me hopeful that my wish will come true.

Last month in D.C. Kathleen Merrigan, Deputy Secretary of Agriculture, Dora Hughes, Counselor to the Secretary of Health, and Sam Kass, White House assistant chef and Food Initiative Coordinator for the First Lady each shared their goals for the next year during an event for the W.K. Kellogg Foundation’s Food and Community Program. Surprisingly it wasn’t their words that left me so inspired; rather it was the words of 10-year-old David Martinez-Ruiz. Kass shared with the audience a letter that the D.C. elementary school student had presented to the First Lady following his class visit to the White House Garden.

One of the things that I want to say about being at the White House was how gentle the feeling was. It felt surprisingly natural to be there. We planted on a warm day. The sun was out and there was a little breeze. The grass was beautiful and green. The people made us feel good. I liked the way the staff person who helped me was very gentle with the worms we found. I think about the garden as being gentle: gentle with nature, gentle to your body, and gentle with each other.

There was not a dry eye in the house after Kass finished reading that letter. David’s sentiments regarding the White House Garden were shared by many of his Bancroft Elementary School classmates. Kass says it is experiences with kids like David that continue to spur the First Lady to champion new and creative ways to help children regain a healthy connection to food and physical activity. By doing so, Mrs. Obama hopes she can help her husband’s administration lead the way in the fight to end the childhood obesity epidemic in America.

The obesity rate in the U.S. has doubled since 1980. According to Secretary of Health Kathleen Sebelious, “over two thirds of American adults -- and almost one out of every five American children -- are obese or overweight.” Shockingly the CDC found that the number of adolescents who are overweight has actually tripled in the last 30 years. Being overweight increases a child’s risk of developing a laundry list of preventable diseases including: heart disease, asthma, and type 2 diabetes. In fact, one in three kids born in 2000 are at risk of developing diabetes in their lifetime -- for children of color that rate is even greater.

So what’s going on? Why are our children so heavy? Ostensibly, the answer seems to be simple -- kids are consuming too many calories and not moving enough. However, obesity experts Drs. David Kessler and Kelly Brownell argue that the root cause is much more complicated. Both point to underlying forces that have powerful influence over what our kids are eating and craving -- namely the abundance of easily accessible and inexpensive processed foods.

Dr. Kessler, a pediatrician, former FDA Commissioner and author of, “The End of Overeating,” claims that the way food companies process, package and market foods plays a key role in the obesity epidemic. Many of these processed foods contain significantly higher levels of fat, sugar and salt, and when consumed it is believed that they trigger primal cravings to eat more. Dr. Kessler calls it, “conditioned hypereating.” Dr. Kessler says research has found in both animals and humans that, “eating foods high in sugar, fat and salt makes us eat more foods high in sugar, fat and salt.”

Processed foods have become ubiquitous in the American diet and make their way into almost every meal. Dr. Brownell director of the Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity at Yale University, argues that these “nutrient-poor, calorie-dense foods cost less and are more accessible than more healthful choices.” Nothing exemplifies this more than the number of low-cost high-volume fast-food restaurants located on the Main Streets of every town in America. Dr. Brownell also warns that marketing practices targeted at kids and adults alike encourage overconsumption of calories. There are plenty of other theories as to why processed foods lead to overeating. For instance, some claim synthetically produced sugars like high fructose corn syrup fail to trigger satiation hormones that tell your brain to stop eating.

Mrs. Obama admits that she didn’t pay too much attention to how food can affect her health until she became a mother. While speaking to David’s class during a White House Garden harvest party she shared what she learned about the benefits of eating healthier foods:

… with the help of our kids' doctor, I became much more aware of the need for my kids to eat healthy… I've learned that if it's fresh and grown locally, it's probably going to taste better… And that's how I've been able to get my children to try different things, and in particular fruits and vegetables. By making this small change in our family's diet and adding more fresh produce for my family, Barack, the girls, me, we all started to notice over a very short period of time that we felt much better and we had more energy.

Now with the help of several Administration agencies including the U.S. Departments of Agriculture, Education and Health the First Lady is leading an initiative to tackle America’s childhood obesity epidemic by making sure kids are eating healthier and moving more. Dr. Hughes, who is a physician board-certified in internal medicine and earned a Master of Public Health degree at Harvard, said she believes the collaborative efforts to fight childhood obesity will be a hallmark of the Obama Administration.

Ironically, as the waistlines of America’s children continue to expand, statistics show that food-insecure households have reached record numbers. The latest 2008 U.S. food insecurity survey found that 49 million people had difficulty meeting basic food needs. President Obama, who has pledged to end child hunger by 2015, said he was particularly troubled to learn, “that there were more than 500,000 families in which a child experienced hunger multiple times over the course of the year.” Kass claims that too often health and nutrition issues are considered to be unrelated to hunger issues. He argues that, “if we assure that all children have equal access to healthy and affordable foods, we will make great strides in tackling both issues.”

Since government numbers indicate that 60 percent of the nation’s public school students receive the majority of their nutrients at school, a keystone to Mrs. Obama’s healthy kids initiative is efforts to encourage improvements to the National School Lunch Program. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack says that providing school children with fruits, vegetables and more nutritious food is a priority for the USDA. There are a few encouraging examples of school districts across the country that are making remarkable strides in school lunch reform without significant government assistance. From Baltimore, Maryland to Berkley, California school districts have adopted progressive programs to teach kids where their food comes from and to encourage them to eat healthy foods. Most recently Washington, D.C. Council members introduced a bill that would require public schools to establish a farm-to-school program and to “create a monetary incentive to serve foods that are locally-grown, locally-processed, and minimally-processed from growers engaged in sustainable practices.”

Helping to improve every American’s relationship with food will not be easy. A fact that Dr. Merrigan, who is leading the, Know Your Farmer, Know Your Food Initiative, understands all too well. The initiative’s goal is to build strong local and regional food systems, which includes creating opportunities for farmers to supply local schools with their harvests. Merrigan admitted that moving the initiative forward in a huge government bureaucracy “is really difficult” and confusing to navigate. She says equally difficult is determining how to establish priorities and deciding what to do first.

If Dr. Merrigan were to ask me for my advice, I would suggest a good place to start is opening a dialogue with America’s parents -- the people who purchase and monitor the food kids eat every day. Each parent who walks into a supermarket has the right and should expect better access to healthy and affordable whole foods for their kids. Michael Pollan, journalist and author of “Omnivore’s Dilemma” and most recently “Food Rules” would argue that most of the foods we buy in the grocery store today are not food at all, but rather “edible food substances” designed by food scientists to mimic “real foods.” One of my favorite food rules that Pollan offers in his new book is, “Don’t eat anything your great-grandmother wouldn’t recognize as food.” As savvy American consumers, parents should be able to buy foods that they know are healthy for their children. Price conscious parents on a limited budget shouldn’t be forced to buy foods that are more likely to make their children sick simply because a healthier alternative costs more. Likewise, parents looking for convenient prepackaged or easy to prepare meals, which their kids often find more palatable, shouldn’t have to compromise their child’s health just because a healthier alternative is not available or too expensive.

Parents must also demand more of the schools that provide lunches for their children. Very few schools across the U.S. prepare their students’ meals with fresh ingredients anymore. Instead, they depend on prepackaged meals made up of those tasty but much less healthy processed foods that are chock-full of sugar, fat and salt like chicken nuggets or pizza. And now we’re learning that many of those processed foods may pose greater food safety issues. It was shameful to read in the USA Today that most fast-food chains impose more stringent food safety standards for their processed beef, “than those set by the Agricultural Marketing Service for beef supplied to the National School Lunch Program.”

Perhaps the biggest challenge of increasing demand for healthy foods is ensuring that every American child prefers to eat them and find them just as or even more satisfying than the processed foods that they eat. Sam Kass -- speaking with his chef’s hat on -- offers his own food rule on that topic. While creating satisfying and tasty meals is important, Kass says, “anybody who cooks for somebody else has the responsibility to safeguard the health and well-being of the people that they are feeding.” I would take it a step further and assert that any company that prepares, serves or advertises food for children is ethically bound to ensure that it is just as healthy as it is palatable. It is also incumbent upon the government to assure that food companies do the right thing for children’s health and make it easier for them to do so.

I believe that if America’s food supply shifts from one that is primarily made of processed foods engineered to encourage overeating to one composed of more balanced healthy and whole foods along with a change in the American appetite that enjoys smaller portions and finds whole foods just as satisfying and tasty, we will then begin to see an end to the childhood obesity epidemic and the chronic diseases associated with it. Dr. Kessler says, “Our greatest gift to future generations of young people would be to find a way to prevent the cue-urge-reward habit cycle from ever taking hold.”

It’s a tall order, but young people like David Martinez-Ruiz continue to give me hope. If his simple experiences with the White House Garden helped him recognize the “gentle” effects of freshly grown foods on his body and on the environment then it is possible to encourage every American child to better appreciate and demand healthy foods.

So what can we do to maintain a healthy weight until then? It’s not easy, but one way is to focus on changing our eating behaviors. Next Monday I’ll take a look at encouraging research out of Dr. Brownell’s Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity that found calorie labels at restaurants, “result in the consumption of significantly fewer calories.” And I’ll introduce you to a new Healthy Monday awareness campaign entitled Monday 2000, designed to remind people that the average person should keep their daily caloric intake to about 2,000 calories a day.

Protein 101: Dispelling the Myth Surrounding Meatless Meals

Mon, 26 Oct 2009 17:27:55 -0400

It is disappointing to see members of the media spread misinformation due to their own ignorance, gullibility, or, worse, disinterest in digging for the truth — especially when it has to do with the health of children. Case in point, a reporter from a South Dakota talk radio show apparently believes that Baltimore City Public Schools’ Meatless Monday meals are lacking in protein. Last Friday, Tom Riter asked U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack a rather leading question (notice how many times he said “bother”) during a USDA news conference to preview the Obama administration’s priorities for the Child Nutrition Act Reauthorization:

“Mr. Secretary, I was wondering if it bothered you… that… you were talking about the importance of the nutrition for the school children… and I was wondering if it bothered you that school districts like Baltimore, Maryland institute Meatless Mondays… not letting the children have protein in the diet by doing that. Does that bother you?”

Seriously? He thinks Baltimore City Schools are denying kids their recommended daily allowance of protein? I hate to break it to you Mr. Riter, but meat isn’t the only food that contains protein. The United States is among the very few wealthy nations in the world where people derive the majority of their dietary protein from animal sources. The global average is 30% of dietary protein from animal sources, including dairy and eggs, and 70% from grains, vegetables, and fruit.

If Mr. Riter had bothered to contact the Baltimore City Schools he would have found that each meat-free meal contains more than the amount of protein required by the USDA. My guess is that Mr. Riter jumped to his mistaken conclusion after reading misleading quotes from a meat lobby organization, or he really needs to brush up on his basic biochemistry.

Not being a biochemist myself, I wanted to confirm with an expert that eating a meat-free diet one day a week in no way denies a child of a well-balanced nutritious meal. So I emailed Dr. Marion Nestle, a nationally renowned food expert and professor of nutrition, food studies and public health at New York University. Dr. Nestle responded:

“Consider it confirmed.”

But what about the claims that we need to eat animal proteins because they contain certain “necessary” amino acids that vegetable proteins don’t? Professor Nestle replied:

“Prepare for a biochemistry lecture: all proteins are made of the same amino acids. ALL. No exceptions. The difference between animal and vegetable proteins is in the content of certain amino acids. If vegetable proteins are mixed, the differences get made up. Even if they are not mixed, all you have to do to get the right amount of the low amino acids is to eat more of that food. There is no ‘need’ for animal proteins at all.”

However, Dr. Nestle did say:

“Meat makes a huge difference in the diets of deprived kids in developing countries not only because of its protein, but also because its nutrients are sometimes more absorbable than those from vegetables. For American kids, who eat plenty of calories, it’s far less important.”

By the way, if Mr. Riter had actually tried to find out what the kids were being served, he would have found animal proteins are still on the menu. Below is a sample of the meals Baltimore kids are eating on Mondays. You might notice that the meals contain dairy products.

Meatless Monday Menu 1

Veggie Lasagna or Grilled Cheese w/ Tomato

Mixed Vegetables, Steamed Broccoli, Pineapple Tidbits & Fresh Fruit

1%, Chocolate, Straw- berry, Non-fat milk

Meatless Monday Menu 2

Pasta Primavera with mozzarella sticks or Grilled Cheese w/ Tomato

Romaine Salad, Garlic Bread, Steamed Broccoli & Fresh Fruit

1%, Chocolate, Straw- berry, Non-fat milk

Meatless Monday Menu 3

Veggie Quesadilla on a Whole Wheat Tortilla or Grilled Cheese w/ Tomato

Black beans and rice, Refried beans, Corn, & Fresh Fruit
1%, Chocolate, Straw- berry, Non-fat milk

Regarding Mr. Riter’s leading question, Secretary Vilsack didn’t bite. Instead he made it clear that all of our schools are feeding students foods that are packed with too much saturated fats and salt:

“It’s fairly clear from the [recently released] Institute of Medicine study and other additional studies that we’ve got far too much sodium, far too much saturated fat in the diets of children, and far too many discretionary calories. The result is that youngsters are not getting the nutrition they need and we need to do a better job.”

I’d be remiss if I didn’t point out that Feedstuffs, a popular agribusiness newspaper, recently took the time to get most of the story straight regarding the Meatless Monday program at Baltimore City Public Schools. Here’s an excerpt for an article published today:

“Interestingly… Anthony Geraci, director of food and nutrition services for BCPS, doesn’t see Meatless Monday as having anything to do with denying kids meat. In his opinion, Meatless Monday is simply a marketing ploy he has adopted to expose kids to more plant-based proteins.”

Feedstuffs’ Trent Loos, a rancher and radio show host, traveled to Baltimore and posted a video of his interview with Geraci. Geraci is a very persuasive person. He obviously won Loos over with his ambitious plan to change the way Baltimore students think about food.

ABC World News with Charles Gibson aired a comprehensive piece last week on Baltimore City Schools school lunch revolution as well. You might recognize the reporter, Dr. Richard Besser, former acting director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Like Tony Geraci often says, we can’t lose sight of the fact that the campaign to improve the foods served in public schools isn’t about politics or corporate profits, it’s about the health and well-being of children.

School Lunch Revolution Blossoms in Baltimore

Tue, 13 Oct 2009 17:05:59 -0400

Sometimes change happens in the most unexpected places. When I learned that Baltimore City Public Schools was on a mission to change the way its more than 80,000 students thought about food, I have to admit, I was surprised. The cash strapped school system has long faced difficult challenges and the last place I expected to see noticeable reform was with its food services department. To top that off, you could have bowled me over, when I heard that the City Schools’ new chef/dietitian, Mellissa Mahoney, convinced her boss, Tony Geraci, to let her develop her own Meatless Monday lunch menus. To be honest, I doubt that Mahoney needed to do a lot of convincing. When it comes to dreaming up innovative and cost effective ways to feed kids healthy, tasty, whole foods, Geraci isn’t shy about pushing the envelope. It’s Geraci’s bold and sometimes brash entrepreneur spirit that has captured the attention of food policy experts across the country, including the White House.

Last week Geraci, hired a little over a year ago to reform Baltimore City Public Schools’ food services program, was invited to testify before a congressional sub-committee that is looking for innovative practices to improve child nutrition. Geraci touted what the Baltimore school system has already achieved:

We now provide fresh fruit with every lunch we serve. All over Baltimore, students are learning what an actual, locally grown peach tastes like instead of some synthesized peach flavoring. And as of this school year all of the peaches, lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers—all of our fruits and vegetables—come from Maryland farms.

While many credit Geraci’s tenacious leadership abilities for what has been accomplished in Baltimore, Geraci will be the first to tell you that much of the groundwork was laid by a strong group of volunteers and innovative community organizers dedicated to changing the way people and children think about food in the Baltimore region. In 2006, a study by the Baltimore Efficiency and Economy Foundation highlighted reasons why school lunch reform in City Schools was sorely needed, and even listed Geraci as a potential consultant. Geraci says, however, that if it were not for a small group of students, whom he calls school lunch revolutionists, he would not be in Baltimore today. One of those young revolutionists, Alice Sheehan, was invited to share her story at the same congressional hearing with Geraci. Sheehan is currently an 8th grader in the Baltimore City Public Schools system, and she wasn’t shy about telling members of the House Committee on Education and Labor what spurred her and her fellow school lunch revolutionists to stand up and demand that school leaders “get rid of the overcooked, tasteless and just plain disgusting food.” She went on:

[more than 3 years ago] Our story started with the endless grumbling about lunches at school. Tired of the complaints and ready for action, our student council and others together took samples of our prepackaged lunch down to the Baltimore City School Board to demonstrate what it would be like to eat this every day. If that is what they feed us, we said, they should have to eat it too. The Board turned up its nose: no thanks! But the deed was done: we had started acting and not just complaining.

With the help of their Social Studies teacher, Peter French, Sheehan and a handful of her fellow classmates, who were studying the U.S. Constitution at the time, came up with a Cafeteria Bill of Rights.

The Cafeteria Bill of Rights include:
o The right to nutritious and delicious food for breakfast and lunch
o The right to fresh fruit and fresh vegetables each day
o The right to choose-more than one main selection each day
o The right to give feedback and have input on the quality and selections made and have our input be given serious consideration

Following an impressive grassroots campaign and a Baltimore Sun article critical of the food quality and taste disparities between City Schools and nearby better funded schools, the young school lunch reformers scheduled a meeting to talk with the newly hired Baltimore City Public Schools CEO Dr. Andrés Alonso. Sheehan described the meeting:

And we gave him our Cafeteria Bill of Rights, and told him of our expectations for a better and healthier school lunch system. He was sympathetic with our cause, and admitted how much he disliked the pre-packaged food at his own cafeteria. He said he would do something about it. And he did. The NEW director of food and nutrition, Mr. Geraci, has been working hard to improve our lunches ever since.

Last month White House Assistant Chef and Food Initiative Coordinator Sam Kass along with officials from the U.S. Departments of Education and Agriculture met up with Geraci, an accomplished chef himself, at the City Schools’ new Great Kids Farm. The 33-acre organic teaching farm - complete with a variety of vegetables and fruits, not to mention goats, chickens and bees - is Geraci’s pride and joy. Geraci says the farm serves as a powerful tool to teach children about food by reconnecting them to how it’s grown and raised and teaching them that food doesn’t come from the grocery store. He proudly told his guests that the farm is virtually self-sufficient thanks to: the hard work of its farm manager, Greg Strella, dozens of volunteers, donations from non-profits, revenue from its community supported agriculture shares and sales to local restaurants.

It may take longer than he hopes, but Geraci is trying to wean the school system from the pre-packaged meals that many of the schools serve and replace them before the end of this school year with cooked meals prepared right on school property. For the majority of the system’s schools, which no longer have kitchens, Geraci is already working on plans to convert an old warehouse into a central kitchen, from which fresh cooked meals can quickly be delivered. Currently the school system is serving kids regional fruits, veggies and dairy after brokering deals with local suppliers and acquiring a fleet of refrigerated trucks and milk coolers.

Mathew Yale, Deputy Chief of Staff for the Secretary of Education, told Geraci he’s most interested in learning about how the school system made so many changes without a significant increase in federal or state funding. Geraci says it takes a lot of hard work, ingenuity, and luck. Much of the equipment he’s received came through grants or donations. The trucks and milk coolers were a $1.3 million gift from the Mid-Atlantic Dairy Association. But Geraci says if the feds gave the school system more freedom to spend federal dollars to purchase produce, his office would be able to buy a great deal more local fruits and veggies. His favorite example of typical waste inherent in the system is comparing the cost of locally grown apples to apples trucked from states as far away as Washington, almost 3,000 miles from Baltimore. A case of Maryland apples costs the Baltimore City Public Schools about $6, while a case of government-approved apples costs them about $56. Geraci says, “it’s outrageous! Why would we spend almost ten times as much money for food that we can grow in our own backyard?” He says, “it not only saves the City Schools money, it puts cash back into the local economy.”

Incorporating Meatless Monday into this year’s lunch menu plans, Geraci says, was another innovative cost cutting measure. The move not only saves the district money but it serves as an educational tool as well. Meatless Monday gives the school system an opportunity to expose students to different cultures, Geraci says, through various meat-free recipes and meals from around the world. U.S. meat industry lobbyists quickly grumbled about Baltimore’s lack of meat options on Mondays, inferring that the meals may lack proper nutrition and claiming menu decisions should be left to the experts not administrators. If the lobbyists had bothered to talk to the person who came up with the idea, Mellissa Mahoney, they would have learned that she is a dietitian and that she ensured each meal surpassed all USDA required nutrition standards. Jokingly, Geraci testified in front of House Education and Labor committee members that he had “an unholy love of pork,” but he insisted that, “[Meatless Monday] is not about denying people meat. This is about beginning a conversation about alternatives… beginning a conversation about change.”
2009 CLF Award presentation at Great Kids Farm
The Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future recognized the Baltimore City Public Schools last month with the 2009 CLF Award for “Visionary Leadership in Local Food Procurement and Food Education” in hopes of encouraging school districts across the nation to initiate their own school lunch reforms. Timing is also important, as lawmakers consider the reauthorization of the federal Child Nutrition Programs. While Geraci didn’t have time to complete his prepared testimony on the Hill last week, his written testimony finished with a request for Congress to implement the six recommendations of the National Farm to School Network:

1. Guarantee funding for competitive, one-time grants that will help schools develop their own farm to cafeteria projects—menus, procurement, and educational and promotional materials that get local produce into schools.

2. Increase the reimbursement rate for all child nutrition programs in line with actual costs.

3. Apply the same high nutritional standards to all foods and beverages sold within schools, even those not covered by the United States Department of Agriculture’s school meals program.

4. Encourage purchasing of local fruits and vegetables through the Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Program.

5. Incorporate language changes in existing Child Nutrition Reauthorization feeding programs to promote increased local food purchasing.

6. Provide mandatory and consistent funding for the Team Nutrition Network to enable a consistent and coordinated nutrition education approach

Any Pork Bailout Should be Tied to ‘Retooling & Improving’

Tue, 1 Sep 2009 16:48:58 -0400

In a letter to president Obama the former executive director of the Pew Commission on Industrial Farm Animal Production (PCIFAP), Robert Martin, suggested that any federal money used to bailout the ailing pork industry be tied to “retooling and improving the swine industry.”

The pork market’s slide is reportedly attributed to overproduction, high feed costs, misplaced public fear over the swine flu, and, of course, the global recession. Martin believes if taxpayers are going to bailout the pork industry, which is dominated by a handful of large corporations, the federal dollars “should be paired with changes to the swine production system that would not only improve long-term sustainability of the industry, but also the environment, public health and rural communities.

Based on the PCIFAP’s recommendations, Martin suggested that those changes should include:

• phasing out the non-therapeutic use of antibiotics and requiring veterinary involvement in all antibiotic use in livestock
• replacing the gestation crate system with hoop barn or pen systems
• replacing liquid waste management systems with solid waste composting

It seems to me that the biggest victims in the pork market plummet are family farmers who are tied to contracts to large corporations like Smithfield Foods and small independent farmers who can’t sell their food across state lines without breaking the law. Independent farmers have a difficult time selling their meat in regional and some local markets, because accessing USDA-approved slaughterhouses is becoming almost impossible due to the fact that the numbers have shrunk greatly across the country and most slaughterhouses only deal with large high yielding corporations. I would hope some of that federal money would go to construct regional slaughterhouses that can be accessed by small producers.

Public Health & Industrial Farm Animal Production: Setting the Record Straight

Thu, 27 Aug 2009 20:48:35 -0400

The American Veterinary Medical Association’s recent “response” to the Pew Commission on Industrial Farm Animal Production’s final report on the state of industrial animal agriculture is disconcerting. It appears that leadership of the veterinary professional organization is attempting to misuse science to obfuscate and delay critically needed changes in the food animal production system rather than tackling very real public health and environmental threats head on.

For years a groundswell had been building from a widespread group of experts and advocates in the areas of public health, environment, social justice, and animal welfare sounding the alarms about the serious problems industrial food animal production poses. But until the Pew Commission on Industrial Farm Animal Production (PCIFAP) decided to take on the politically controversial issue, there had never been a comprehensive examination of industry’s practices by such a respected and diverse panel of experts. Following a grueling 2½ -year discovery process, and despite several overt attempts by industry to discredit it, the Commission concluded that the scientific evidence was too strong and the public health risk too great to ignore and offered a series of consensus recommendations on how to repair our unsafe food animal production system.

The tone and timing of the AVMA’s 38-page response to the PCIFAP final report, 15 months after it was released, is quite telling. The document’s executive summary starts out by suggesting that the PCIFAP’s technical reports (published separately) were “biased,” and that, “the Pew report contains significant flaws and major deviations from both science and reality.” Another telling facet is that the “response” contains very little scientific citation to backup its rebuttal. It’s not a coincidence that this response coincides with the recent revelation that the Obama Administration supports the idea of banning the use of key antibiotics as growth promoters in food animals, which happens to be one of the PCIFAP’s key recommendations. Not to mention, this year’s version of the Preservation of Antibiotics for Medical Treatment Act (PAMTA) appears to have a much better chance of passing than in any prior year. 
The AVMA depends heavily on its relationships with the animal agriculture, pharmaceutical and other industries. The AVMA’s attack on the PCIFAP final report smacks of being more like an industry-choreographed campaign to defeat PAMTA than a conscientious review of a hugely important document.

Two prominent veterinarians trained in public health are dismayed over the AVMA’s PCIFAP final report response. One of those veterinarians is the PCIFAP’s vice chairman, Dr. Michael Blackwell. As the former dean of University of Tennessee’s College of Veterinary Medicine, a retired assistant U.S. surgeon general, and a former chief of staff of at the Office of the U.S. Surgeon General, Dr. Blackwell’s expertise in both veterinary medicine and public health is undeniable. Dr.Blackwell says he’s, “shocked over the fact that the AVMA did not try to learn the truth about the Commission’s work, even from one of its own members,” and “instead chose to write a response from the perspective of the industry.” Dr. Christine Hoang, assistant director for the AVMA’s scientific activities, confirmed that the writing group, selected by AVMA leadership, never reached out to Dr. Blackwell or even attempted to poll other members of the PCIFAP to clear up any questions they may have had with the final report recommendations. Dr. Blackwell pressed the AVMA to allow him to discuss the Commission and its report. However, he says the writing group only allowed him 20 minutes via phone to speak to six committees. Dr. Blackwell concluded that the AVMA was not interested in what he had to say. When asked why the AVMA writing group did not reach out to PCIFAP members, the AVMA’s CEO, Dr. Ron DeHaven, said that the writers felt discussions would not be productive, because they had reviewed the same data and came up with different conclusions. Dr. DeHaven added that a few of the AVMA writing group members, who had been contacted by the PCIFAP during its discovery process, felt that the PCIFAP final recommendations did not reflect information that they had provided the PCIFAP commissioners and believed that further discussion with PCIFAP members was not warranted.

In a letter to his Texas congressional representatives, another AVMA member, Dr. Raymond Tarpley, shared his disappointment with the organization’s stance on PAMTA:

“I am dismayed that my professional organization (the AVMA of which I am a member) has chosen to pursue a reckless policy that favors the misuse of critical antibiotic compounds for reasons other than medical necessity. Microbial resistance to loose and repeated antibiotic exposure for non-therapeutic reasons has been proven, and while the AVMA has apparently buckled to pressures from industrial animal agriculture, it is without doubt an unwise investment in the health of our animals and human population to continue to use these valuable compounds to promote industry profits at the expense of societal risk”

In a letter to the White House earlier this month, Big Food representatives tried to defend the use of antibiotics in food animals as growth promoters, using similar arguments that the AVMA laid out in its PCIFAP final report response. Industry continues to point to European data, collected by countries that banned the use of antibiotics for growth promotion in food animals several years ago, to bolster its claim that a ban in the U.S. would backfire and increase the number of sick animals. In its PCIFAP final report response, the AVMA claimed animal deaths and disease in Denmark rose following its ban, “requiring more therapeutic antibiotic use to treat the resultant diseases.”

Dr. Tarpley dismisses the AVMA’s interpretation of the Danish data:

“Contrary to statements by the AVMA, the ban on antibiotics in Denmark has been shown to have positive benefits for human and animal welfare, while not harming the industry. Their interpretation of the Danish data reflects the bias of the AVMA in the spin of data favorable to industry.”

Setting the Record Straight
 It’s not just Dr. Tarpley who dismisses the AVMA’s findings on antibiotic bans. Last month, two Danish researchers from the National Food Institute at the Technical University of Denmark, Drs. Frank Møller Aarestrup and Henrik Wegener, submitted written testimony for a U.S. House Committees Rules hearing on PAMTA to, “set the record straight.”

“As you may be aware, representatives of organizations funded by U.S. agri-business have criticized and mis-represented the facts on the Danish ban of antibiotics since its inception.”

They explained that over the long-term, the ban on antibiotics for growth promotion in Danish pigs not only reduced antibiotic use by more than 50 percent but overall pork production has increased by 43 percent. 
Despite its recognition that veterinarians should increase their coordination among physicians and public health professionals, the AVMA’s stance on public health prevention appears to be out of sync with the rest of the world. In video and audio recordings posted on the AVMA’s website, Dr. DeHaven kept using the the term “theoretical risk.”

“…the Pew Commission recommends the elimination of the use of certain antibiotics in animals based on a purely theoretical risk to human health.”

Recent statements from Dr. Frederick Angulo, a veterinarian himself and the Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s Deputy Chief of the Enteric Diseases Epidemiology Branch, appear to contradict Dr. DeHaven’s claim.

“There is scientific consensus that antibiotic use in food animals contributes to resistance in humans. And there’s increasing evidence that such resistance results in adverse human health consequences at the population level.”

There is overwhelming evidence documented not only in the PCIFAP’s technical report, Industrial Farm Animal Production, Antimicrobial Resistance and Human Health, which was conducted by experts at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, but in other peer-reviewed research conducted all over the world, that proves the use of antibiotics in food animals contributes to the growing pool of antibiotic resistance in nature. It is undeniable that low-dose use of antibiotics, (i.e., using it as a growth promoter in animals) leads to the selection of bacteria with resistance to many of the antibiotics doctors depend on to treat people for serious infections. 
Dr. Blackwell didn’t hold back his disappointment in a letter that he recently sent to Dr. DeHaven regarding the AVMA’s refusal to recognize that animal agriculture is a major contributor to antibiotic resistance.

"To my knowledge, the AVMA remains the only major medical or public health organization not recommending changes in agriculture practices to help ensure sustainability where the use of antimicrobials is concerned. As a public health veterinarian I find this disconcerting and embarrassing" 
Public Health vs. Cost Effectiveness

So why is the AVMA clinging to this term “theoretical risk?” Here lies one of public health’s biggest conundrums. The goal of public health professionals is to take all reasonable efforts to protect people from preventable diseases. Often times reasonable can be defined as cost effective. The big question, especially now as the health care reform debate rages on across the country, is whether preventative health care measures are cost effective? If you’re only focusing on quarterly returns and immediately measurable public health benefits, the answer most likely is no. This is especially true in the eyes of Big Ag, because it’s going to cost money upfront to retrofit all of those industrial farms that are dependent on antibiotics to make up for the unhealthy conditions in which the animals we eat are produced. Not to mention, you can’t measure in a short period time how much money was saved due to public health disease prevention measures. 
How do you measure the cost savings or return on investment in cases where an antibiotics ban prevented people from getting sick and going to the doctor or the hospital? We know a great deal about the costs of drug resistant infections in the United States in terms of health care costs, increased morbidity, and increased risk of death. Over longer periods of time we can measure whether doctor visits or reported illnesses are decreasing among certain populations or regions touched by industrial animal agriculture. Dr. Ellen Silbergeld, a nationally renowned expert in antimicrobial resistance and its relations to agriculture, and the lead author of the PCIFAP’s antimicrobial resistance technical report, says there is no question that removing antibiotics and other antimicrobials from animal feed will save money through reduced human medical costs. Dr. Silbergeld says based on multinational studies (ex. Austrian study) in Europe following the ban on antimicrobials in animal feeds, “there is clear evidence that this ban was associated with reduced prevalence of drug resistant pathogens in people in hospitals in the E.U.”

It doesn’t surprise me that researchers in Denmark found that Danish farmers initially saw increases in animal disease when the antibiotic ban went into effect. However, after farmers improved ventilation systems and gave the animals more space, within a relatively short period of time they found production actually increased while at the same time they greatly reduced the need for antibiotics. 
When it comes to cost savings, particularly when you’re looking at environmental health cost savings, the PCIFAP argues that you have to take into account the externalized costs of industrial animal production. Right now Big Ag is very happy to let the public pick up the tab. Those externalized costs, among a host of other things, include increased environmental health risks from the introduction of antibiotic resistant bacteria like MRSA or novel viruses like the current H1N1 swine flu, particulate matter known to exacerbate asthma, the emissions of countless toxic gasses from enclosed barns and environmental pollution from excess nutrients (animal feces & urine) contributing to the dead zones in the Gulf of Mexico and choking the Chesapeake Bay. Don’t forget about the contamination concerns of nitrates and other pollutants in well water from all that liquid animal waste sprayed onto or pumped into the ground that is not agronomically absorbed.

The PCIFAP’s technical report entitled An Economic Analysis of the Social Costs of the Industrialized Production of Pork in the United States can be applicable in almost any public health prevention cost analysis. This particular analysis determined that when you consider several “external” costs of industrial hog production and subsidies, using the alternative and more sustainable hoop barn system costs about 25 percent less than the use of conventional concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs). (Ironically, without including externalities, CAFOs only have a 26-cents per hundredweight advantage over hoop barns.) Using the same equation that researchers devised for the PCIFAP economics report and inputting the externalized costs, we could get a glimpse at the potential cost effectiveness of an antibiotics ban for growth promotion in industrial food animal production in the U.S. The tough part is agreeing on what those externalized costs are and whether they can be attributed to animal agriculture -- hence the reason for all of this industry obfuscation and attempts to misuse science to muddy the issues. The longer Big Ag can hold off on paying for upgrades and changes to the system the longer it can continue to make money at the public’s expense.

It’s interesting to note that Dr. DeHaven himself played a role in the PCIFAP’s early discovery process. During a 2006 meeting in Washington, DC Dr. DeHaven took part in a discussion panel consisting of several members of the USDA invited to discuss their role in regulating animal agriculture. At the time, Dr. DeHaven was the head of the USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspections Service.
 I sincerely hope that the 78,000 veterinarians, whom AVMA leadership say they represent, view the AVMA’s response to the PCIFAP final report with the same scrutiny as Drs. Blackwell and Tarpley. It’s a black eye on an incredibly important profession filled with some of the most brilliant people I know. 
(I served as the Communications Director for the Pew Commission on Industrial Farm Animal Production)

How Much Does U.S. Livestock Production Contribute to Greenhouse Gas Emissions?

Tue, 4 Aug 2009 21:15:43 -0400

A round of applause for Washington Post reporter Ezra Klein for pointing out last week the undeniable fact that meat production is a major contributor to global warming, and that consumers can make a difference by cutting out their meat consumption just one day a week. How big a difference in greenhouse gases reduction it would make in the United States has long been a topic of debate, and something I’ve wanted to clarify for quite a while. Before I explain why, I want to make it clear that there is more than enough evidence that shows reducing meat consumption nationwide would lead to dramatic improvements in environmental degradation, widespread public and personal health risks, animal welfare and environmental and social justice issues.
First off, I’m pleased to see that mainstream media outlets are finally increasing their coverage of food systems’ effects on climate change. Believe it or not, it’s taken a while for the news gatekeepers to catch on. Last year Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future’s research and policy director Roni Neff published a paper in the journal of Public Health Nutrition that found U.S. newspaper coverage did not reflect the increasingly solid evidence of climate change effects due to current food systems.
It’s not just burps from livestock that are to blame for the greenhouse gases (GHG) attributed to food animal production. Don’t forget that the vast majority of the grains we grow in the U.S. go to feed livestock. A 12-year-old Cornell study found that livestock, “consume more than five times as much grain as is consumed directly by the entire American population.” (The amount of fresh water used in animal production is even more shocking.) When you consider the GHG emissions from all that grain production including transportation and the fossil fuels used to make artificial fertilizers you start to get the picture of just how resource intensive industrial food animal production can be. Klein’s article does a fair job of trying to explain all the contributing GHG factors…
According to a 2006 United Nations report, livestock accounts for 18 percent of worldwide greenhouse gas emissions. Some of meat’s contribution to climate change is intuitive. It’s more energy efficient to grow grain and feed it to people than it is to grow grain and turn it into feed that we give to calves until they become adults that we then slaughter to feed to people. Some of the contribution is gross. “Manure lagoons,” for instance, is the oddly evocative name for the acres of animal excrement that sit in the sun steaming nitrous oxide into the atmosphere. And some of it would make Bart Simpson chuckle. Cow gas — interestingly, it’s mainly burps, not farts — is a real player.
… but like most issues, it’s a lot more complicated than that. As a communicator I have a difficult time deciding just how much information I should dump on a reader before the message I’m trying to convey becomes too muddied and convoluted.
The UN report that Klein mentions by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations entitled Livestock’s Long Shadow is a well done and important document, which I hope will influence climate change policies in countries around the world. However, I’ve always been a little uneasy when reporters throw around the 18% number without making it crystal clear that the percentage represents global GHG emissions due to food animal production. To be fair, Klein did say “worldwide,” but he would have been more clear if he wrote that, while the total amount of GHG emitted by livestock in the United States is massive, compared to other GHG emitters in the U.S. the percentage may be lower here. Always looking for a technicality to exploit, food industry spin-machines are screaming foul over Klein’s article. They claim Livestock’s Long Shadow, “has thoroughly been debunked,” pointing to EPA data that suggests the percentage of GHG emissions from all agriculture production in the U.S. is only 6%.
I’d like to “debunk” their misleading claim. First off, the percentage used by Livestock’s Long Shadow is not comparable because UN researchers were looking at global numbers and they included data that the EPA accounts for in other categories. Regardless, industry groups are trying to confuse the American public by focusing on percentages rather than hard numbers. Even if the percentage is actually lower, that doesn’t mean that the total GHG emissions are any less. The fact that the U.S. spits out so much more GHG through its power plants, fossil fuel powered vehicles and factories than most other countries, it’s not surprising that the percentage number is lower. The U.S. is arguably the number one GHG emitter in the world. Although recent data suggest China just earned the top distinction, climate experts say all the GHG created by Chinese factories spitting out products for American consumers should count towards our total. But I digress. Another contributor to a lower percentage number may include that we’ve already deforested the majority of our land, unlike less developed countries.
Because the EPA does not break out a livestock number in its GHG inventory report, we can only assume that if they used the same data, their number would be less than 6%. A while ago I called up the EPA to find out why their numbers were so different. One researcher told me it’s because their figures omit many of the factors that Livestock’s Long Shadow takes into account. If you read the executive summary of the EPA’s 2009 U.S. Greenhouse Gas Inventory report you’ll see that, unlike Livestock’s Long Shadow, when EPA researchers determined U.S. agriculture’s contributions they were not looking at GHG emissions from fuel combustion or CO2 fluxes due to land use.
The Agricultural chapter contains anthropogenic emissions from agricultural activities (except fuel combustion, which is addressed in the Energy chapter, and agricultural CO2 fluxes, which are addressed in the Land Use, Land-Use Change, and Forestry Chapter).
So what exactly did Livestock’s Long Shadow include in its computations that the EPA did not? Here’s what I could determine:
• Carbon dioxide emissions from: Nitrogen in fertilizer production, on farm fossil fuel related to feed and livestock, deforestation, desertification of pasture, cultivated soils due to tillage and liming, processing and transport.
Again, I think it’s misleading for industry to even try to compare the 6% number, because as you can see the EPA did not take the holistic approach of computing the data that the UN did. As far as I know, no one has crunched the numbers to determine a comparable GHG emissions number for U.S. livestock. But there is a strong study out of Carnegie Mellon University that took the first comprehensive look at GHG and food production systems in the U.S. The study entitled Food-Miles and the Relative Impacts of Food Choices in the United States yielded some data that could help me come up with relatively close figures. So I reached out to one of our scientists already researching the life-cycle impacts of food production for CLF, Brent Kim, for assistance. Here’s what we came up with:
Red meat + dairy + chicken/fish/eggs = 58% of diet-related emissions (Christopher L. Weber and H. Scott Matthews)
Total U.S. per capita diet-related emissions (animal products only): 3.1 x 0.58 = 1.78 t/year (EPA)
Percentage of total U.S. footprint: 1.78/20.67 = roughly 9%*
* There is one caveat, since the authors’ data grouped together all animal products including fish, dairy and eggs, the number may be a little less comparable, but it should be fairly close.
While much less than the 18% worldwide estimate, 9% still remains a significant number. And in real numbers, not percentages, U.S. livestock production’s GHG contribution could still be the largest in the world. Our friends across the pond are seeing similar GHG percentages. A 2009 report by the respected Food Climate Research Network based at Surrey University determined that livestock generated between 7- 8% of the United Kingdom’s GHG emissions and that substantial reductions in animal based food consumption are needed to cut GHG emissions. However, the author claims if you’re looking to significantly reduce your GHG footprint, you should cut out all animal products like milk, butter and cheese, because dairy production, while its contribution to GHG is less than beef cattle, is a large source of GHG. It’s also fair to note that poultry produce less GHG than ruminants and swine.
Not surprisingly, industry is trying to come up with high-tech band-aids to tackle the GHG issue. Some are trying to breed cows that burp less, others are working on less gassy feed, and don’t forget about the anaerobic digesters that can turn animal waste into electricity; think Mad Max: Beyond the Thunderdome. I may be biased, but I prefer the more sustainable alternatives, like sustainable meat production and farming, that have the potential to reduce GHG emissions and sequester carbon while at the same time addressing all of the other negative effects of industrial food animal production. It should be noted that while sustainable food animal production contributes less GHG than the conventional industrial model its contribution could still be significant.
In the meantime, I agree with people like Dr. Rajendra Pachauri, Chair of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and journalist and author of Omnivore’s Dilemma Michael Pollan who say one of the best ways we can help the environment and our health is to stick with a vegetarian diet once a week. I would add that you might want to cut out all animal products that day if you’re looking to reduce your GHG footprint even more. Regular readers of the LivableFutureBlog know that CLF has long promoted the benefits of a Meatless Monday. Ezra, if you’re reading this, please feel free to spread the word about the national campaign that was created in association with the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

Mr. President, I challenge you to a nudge-off

Sat, 25 Jul 2009 13:10:34 -0400

Below is an op-ed I wrote for the Baltimore Sun in the form of a letter to President Obama. 
A challenge to the ex-smoker in chief
July 25, 2009

Dear Mr. President,  I feel your pain. It is no fun being judged by others for a personal habit, regardless of whether it's bad for your health or not. I cringed the other week when, under the guise of wondering whether your new anti-smoking law will be effective, McClatchy reporter Margaret Talev rattled off a series of nosy questions about your own smoking habits during your first afternoon news conference.   As a person who battled a serious weight problem and exhibited horrendous eating behaviors for decades, I totally understand why you needled Ms. Talev for prying into your private life. Despite the fact that I lost about 180 pounds six years ago, I still struggle to stay on that proverbial wagon that you claim to fall off of "once every month or so." Which leads me to the reason for my correspondence today. Following the teachings of your trusted advisor, Cass Sunstein (co-author of Nudge), I'd like to challenge you to a mutually beneficial nudge-off.  I couldn't help but notice that you made a concerted effort to make it clear that you are "a former smoker," rather than a smoker who just can't seem to stay quit. No doubt, Mr. Sunstein taught you the important lesson of changing your default self-image. If you ever "fall off the wagon" again and smoke a cigarette, instead of feeling like you've failed and that you're a smoker again, the moment you take that last drag you'll return to your default nonsmoker position. It's a subtle change of thought, but it can be quite empowering. Now you won't have to struggle with the pangs of quitting again because you've already decided that you're a nonsmoker. However, the difficulty of making sure you don't stray again remains. That's where our nudge-off will come into play.  Through simple diet and exercise I was able to lose almost half my body weight in less than a year, but I couldn't have done it without significantly altering my self-defeating eating habits. The experience has given me keen insight into behavior change, and played no small role in drawing me to my current position at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, where I am directing several projects designed to positively influence health and eating behaviors. The projects are based on the national Healthy Monday campaign's communications model, which incorporates weekly reminders and nudges every Monday in hopes that the intended behavior change will not only take place that day but will carry on through the week.  After reading Mr. Sunstein's and Richard Thaler's book, Nudge, I realized the Monday model is a perfect complement to their theory on how to improve "decisions about health, wealth and happiness," or in other words, nudging people to make the right decisions. In your case, Mr. President, if you fall off the wagon again, using periodic messaging each Monday will offer you 52 nudges a year to get right back on, reinforcing your new nonsmoker default self-image. The model can be implemented in countless ways. Currently, with the leadership of several obesity experts at Johns Hopkins, I am directing a caloric awareness research project based on the Monday model. I've also reached out to Baltimore City Public Schools in hopes of incorporating a cooking program for kids each Monday. In an effort to save money, help the environment, and improve students' health, the school system's top chef has already decided to offer Meatless Monday menu options during the next school year.  So, here's my proposal: I challenge you to fight any urge to smoke each Monday for the next year; in return, since I need to lose about 50 pounds, on the same day I promise to consume less than 2,000 calories worth of food and drink. Should I falter, I will donate $100 dollars to the charity of your choice or, should you like, I could take over your dog walking duties for a month - your call. If you falter, well, you are the president of the United States, so perhaps the most I could hope for is a phone call.  Sincerely,
Ralph Loglisci, Baltimore  The writer is project director for the Johns Hopkins Healthy Monday Project.
Link to story in the Sun.

Will Big Ag try to redefine what’s considered preventive care now that the White House signaled it supports banning the use of antibiotics for growth promotion in food animals?

Fri, 17 Jul 2009 12:08:16 -0400

Chalk one up for public health advocates fighting to keep antibiotics an effective treatment for fighting disease in people after the FDA’s principal deputy commissioner of food and drugs, Dr. Joshua Sharfstein, revealed that the Obama Administration, “supports ending the use of antibiotics for growth and feed efficiency” in food animals. Dr. Sharfstein made the statement during a House Rules Committee hearing Monday afternoon, which was called by the committee chair, Congresswoman Louise Slaughter (D, NY), to discuss her proposed Preservation of Antibiotics for Medical Treatment Act. (PAMTA)

For public health advocates, the fact that the FDA is officially linking antimicrobial resistance to animal agriculture is worthy of celebration, considering industry lobbyists successfully bullied the FDA under the Bush Administration to look the other way and tried to sweep the unsavory facts under the rug for years. Not surprisingly, Dave Warner a spokesperson for the National Pork Producers Council told the New York Times:

“there are no good studies that show that some of these antibiotic-resistant diseases… have any link to antibiotic use in food-animal production.”

What surprises me is that the NYT didn’t call Warner out on this claim. Maybe both the NYT and Warner could learn a great deal from Dr. Frederick Angulo over at the Center for Disease Control and Prevention. Dr. Angulo knows a little bit about infectious diseases. He’s a medical epidemiologist trained in veterinary medicine and human public health. Angulo serves as the CDC’s Deputy Chief of the Enteric Diseases Epidemiology Branch in Atlanta. He’s considered to be a world-renowned expert in foodborne and waterborne diseases. Just recently the Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association quoted him as saying:

“There is scientific consensus that antibiotic use in food animals contributes to resistance in humans,” Dr. Angulo said. “And there’s increasing evidence that such resistance results in adverse human health consequences at the population level. Antibiotics are a finite and precious resource, and we need to promote prudent and judicious antibiotic use.”

Antibiotic resistance may sound like a new issue to many Americans, but believe it or not it’s been a concern almost since Dr. Alexander Fleming discovered penicillin in 1928. During his 1945 Nobel Prize lecture, Fleming warned about the dangers of resistance:

“It is not difficult to make microbes resistant to penicillin in the laboratory by exposing them to concentrations not sufficient to kill them, and the same thing has occasionally happened in the body.”

The Union of Concerned Scientists estimates that as much as 70% of all the antimicrobials produced in the U.S. are given to food animals. Millions of pounds of antimicrobials are administered each year at low doses to these animals, usually in their feed. So it’s not surprising that we’re finding antimicrobial resistant bugs like MRSA, better known as the flesh-eating bacteria, or resistant forms of Campylobacter, E. coli and Salmonella on the meats that we buy in the grocery store and floating around in the environment. Big Ag advocates claim that the proposed ban is going to backfire and we’ll end up with even more sick food animals and force farmers to treat them with antibiotics anyway. Many, like Congressman Leonard Boswell (D-IA) point to examples in Denmark, where a ban enacted more than a decade ago initially increased the mortality of piglets and the need to treat them with antibiotics. But as Robert Martin, former executive director for the Pew Commission on Industrial Farm Animal Production, testified, what the industry seems to ignore (or doesn’t want the public to know) is that once Danish hog farmers improved their production practices, “including better ventilation in the barns, more space provided for the animals, and more frequent cleaning of the barns,” the mortality rates quickly declined to pre-ban numbers.

Two Danish scientists, Dr. Frank Møller Aarestrup and Dr. Henrik Wegener, from the National Food Institute at the Technical University of Denmark submitted written testimony to the Rules Committee in effort to “set the record straight.” Drs. Aarstrup and Henrick said “representatives of organizations funded by U.S. agri-business have criticized and mis-represented the facts on the Danish ban of antibiotics since its inception.” In fact, according to their soon to be published study on the “Danish experience,” over the long-term, significantly reducing the use of antimicrobials actually increased swine productivity.

Lawmakers, like Senator Ted Kennedy (D-MA) and Congresswoman Slaughter have been introducing forms of PAMTA for almost a decade now. From the beginning, organizations like the American Public Health Association, American Medical Association, Consumers Union and the Center for Science in the Public Interest recognized the need to restrict the constant low dosage use of antibiotics in agriculture. Each year, provisions in the legislation varied, but each version proposed banning the use of antibiotics important to human health from being used in food animals and to restrict the use of other antibiotics.

While many health advocates applaud lawmakers for introducing PAMTA, there are some who believe the legislation should be stronger. Martin was invited to Monday’s hearing to present the Pew Commission’s findings and recommendations on how to tackle the antibiotic resistance threat posed by animal agriculture. The Commission goes a few steps further than PAMTA. Rather than limiting the ban to the 7 classes of antibiotics important to human health, the Commission recommended a ban on the non-therapeutic use of all antibiotics and other antimicrobials, like ionophores, that have the potential to lead to the increase of antimicrobial resistant bacteria in the environment. Ionophores are made up of organic compounds that have antibiotic properties. Instead of using fungus based antibiotics, ionophores are commonly added to feed to kill single-cell parasites that infest the intestinal tracts of animals. You might remember Tyson Foods got into a little hot water a few years ago for labeling its chicken antibiotic-free despite the fact it was still treating its birds with ionophores. While the use of ionophores continues to add to the ever-increasing “reservoir of antimicrobial resistance,” the USDA says the use of the compounds, “…does not necessarily lead to other types of antibiotic resistance.” What led scientists to couch their conclusion was that they did find that the use could lead to resistance in bacitracin, which is commonly found in antibiotic ointments, like Neosporin, used to treat skin and eye infections.

Robert Martin says, “PAMTA is a good first step, but as it’s currently written, I think it’s only a beginning in reducing the threat of antibiotic resistance in animal agriculture.” The proposed legislation could even be less effective if industry lobbyists are successful in redefining what the proposed law should consider therapeutic uses of antibiotics. Martin warns that the industry is trying to argue that producers no longer use antibiotics as growth promoters; rather they’re primarily using the drugs to keep the animals from getting sick. Martin quipped, “it’s the crowded, unhealthy, putrid conditions these animals are forced to live in that’s making them sick, and that is not a reasonable excuse to threaten the effectiveness of antibiotics in human medicine.”

House Committee Exempts Livestock & Poultry From Food Safety Bill. Where’s the Dissent?

Fri, 19 Jun 2009 18:36:10 -0400

During my TV-news days, I supported the old axiom; it must be a balanced report if we’re getting just as much negative feedback as we are positive responses. I found the same rule of thumb to hold true on Capitol Hill. Good legislation usually means each side had to make serious concessions, inevitably leaving a number of unhappy people to complain about its inadequacies. Perhaps that’s why I’m feeling a little uneasy over the latest developments surrounding the long overdue Food Safety Enhancement Act of 2009. After some serious arm-twisting from Big Ag and members of the House Agriculture Committee, the members of the House Energy and Commerce Committee unanimously agreed Wednesday to alter the proposed legislation and “exempt livestock and poultry from oversight by the Food and Drug Administration.” I’ve heard a lot of praise for the committee’s bi-partisan approval of the bill, but where are the dissenters? Where is the healthy debate?I understand why so many people continue to support the bill, if passed in its current form it will reduce the number of foodborne disease outbreaks. Many consumer groups are relieved that the bill remains as comprehensive as it is. In a recent news release the Consumers Union highlighted why the current bill is a significant move forward.
“The bill would go a long way towards preventing outbreaks like the ones we have seen with spinach and peanut butter. Among the many important provisions in this bill, we’ve pushed hard to require high-risk food processors to test for contaminants and tell the FDA when they find them, and we’re pleased that this provision was added to the bill approved today.”
The Center for Science in the Public Interest called the proposed legislation historic and that the bill has the support of a broad coalition of consumer and public health groups.
“The bill includes many measures that food safety experts have urged for years… It also would require the FDA to conduct more frequent inspections of food processing facilities, and gives the agency the authority to order companies to recall contaminated food.”
Excellent points, and I agree it’s a crucial first step, but I believe that it’s important to let people know that exempting livestock and poultry from FDA oversight seriously weakens the legislation, especially when you consider most foodborne illnesses in the U.S. are linked to food animals. Here are a few excerpts from the CDC’s website explaining how food becomes contaminated and what foods are most associated with foodborne illnesses.
“We live in a microbial world, and there are many opportunities for food to become contaminated as it is produced and prepared. Many foodborne microbes are present in healthy animals (usually in their intestines) raised for food. Meat and poultry carcasses can become contaminated during slaughter by contact with small amounts of intestinal contents. Similarly, fresh fruits and vegetables can be contaminated if they are washed or irrigated with water that is contaminated with animal manure or human sewage.”
“Fresh manure used to fertilize vegetables can also contaminate them.“
If you listen to Big Ag’s argument, the FDA doesn’t have the know-how, manpower or money to do on-farm inspections, and besides USDA already has many of the powers the original act wanted to give the FDA. This may be true, but if lawmakers are serious about improving food safety, they should give the FDA the assistance it needs to get the job done, because we all know the USDA certainly isn’t. That’s not to say the food safety experts at the USDA don’t know what they’re doing, it’s just that the schizophrenic USDA policies, spilt between promoting agriculture and regulating it, have most inspectors hamstrung.
The American public should understand that this approach of catching all of the bugs at the processing level instead of at the source allows Big Ag to continue to produce food through its aging and unsafe industrial model instead of focusing on finding a better and safer way to make the food we eat.

Hollywood Takes on Big Food in New Hard-Hitting Documentary

Wed, 10 Jun 2009 18:46:04 -0400

We put faith in our government to protect us, and we’re not being protected at the most basic level,” strong words from a mother whose two-and-a-half-year-old son died just days after eating a hamburger tainted with E. coli O157:H7. Barbara Kowalcyk’s personal fight to ensure that the food we feed our children will not endanger their health or their lives, was just one of the many powerful stories told in the soon to be released documentary Food Inc. The hard-hitting film takes a critical look at the industrial food production system and the many risks it poses on society from public health threats and environmental degradation to social injustice.
Food, Inc. begins with a brilliant opening-credits sequence which takes us through a grocery story with the names and titles creatively placed on food products and aisle placards, while Omnivore’s Dilemma author Michael Pollan narrates the premise of the film. The premise, as described on Food, Inc.’s press packet:
“Food, Inc. … lifts the veil on our nation’s food industry, exposing the highly mechanized underbelly that’s hidden from the American consumer with the consent of our government’s regulatory agencies. Our nation’s food supply is now controlled by a handful of corporations that often put profit ahead of consumer health, the livelihood of the American farmer, the safety of workers and our own environment.”
The filmmakers achieved an almost impossible task, by compressing an incredibly complex issue into a highly produced and balanced 93-minute film. A quick disclaimer: Two years ago, during my tenure as the communications director for the Pew Commission on Industrial Farm Animal Production, Robert Kenner and Co-producer Elise Pearlstein asked me for research and background assistance for the film. I was impressed by their doggedness in trying to accurately and fairly portray the issues.
There is so much to say about this movie and the issues surrounding it, that it is difficult to keep this blog entry brief. Soon I will focus on some key points that were somewhat new and of great interest to me.
Patenting Seeds of Discontent
The stories surrounding Monsanto and the accusations of farmer intimidation and monopolization of the nation’s crop seeds by the “agricultural company” were surprising. The movie’s press kit says 90 percent of the nation’s soybeans contain Monsanto’s patented gene designed to resist the weed killer “Roundup.” Like many seed companies, Monsanto refuses to allow its customers to save or sell its patented seeds from their harvest, forcing farmers to purchase new seeds every year. Monsanto employs a team of investigators to enforce their seed patents, and according to Food, Inc., “spends millions of dollars to investigate, intimidate and sue farmers – many of whom are financially unable to fight the corporation.” The movie claims Monsanto will pursue non-customers for patent violations even if the seeds accidentally germinate on their property. Three farmers interviewed in the movie, one in silhouette to protect his identity, described their legal battles with the corporate giant, all of whom said they were forced to settle due to astronomical legal fees. Despite the fact that Monsanto would not agree to be interviewed by the Food, Inc. producers, the company posted a website page to respond to movie’s claims.
Coming Up
In the coming days I will discuss: a truly eye-opening and sad portion of the film which included footage of federal agents raiding trailer homes of presumably illegal immigrants hired to work in a Smithfield meat packing plant in Tar Heel, North Carolina; a series of scenes of a struggling Mexican-American couple living in California, who explained that despite the health risks the high cost of fresh foods forces them to rely on industrially produced fast and processed foods to feed themselves and their two young daughters; and the federal agriculture and food safety policies that have and continue to promote the corn based production system which the film links to many of the nation’s serious health problems including obesity and diabetes.
Fellow Center for a Livable Future blogger Rebecca Klein offers some great insight on the food safety angle brought up in Food, Inc. Read her blog post here.
If you’re looking for some great reviews of the Food, Inc. check out these links:
Eat, Drink, Think, Change - New York Times
Yes, You Have To See Food, Inc. - The Atlantic Food Channel
Food, Inc.: Piercing the Veil of Corporate Agriculture
Food Inc. opens in New York City, Los Angeles and San Francisco on Friday.