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For Immediate Release
March, 27 2015, 04:30pm EDT
Contact:
Kate Fried, Food & Water Watch, kfried@fwwatch.org
Obama's Antibiotic Plan Fails to Address Overuse on Factory Farms
Statement of Food & Water Watch Executive Director Wenonah Hauter
WASHINGTON
"Today the White House released its 'National Action Plan for Combating Antibiotic Resistant Bacteria,' which is intended to protect the public from antibiotic resistant infections. Unfortunately, the plan falls short of protecting the public from this looming public health crisis in that it fails to adequately address the misuse of antibiotics on factory farms, relying on FDA's limited efforts to change practices through voluntary guidance.
" Food & Water Watch supports the plan's call for USDA and FDA to research and promote alternatives to antibiotic use in livestock and poultry. Such research is necessary to support a transition away from non-therapeutic uses of antibiotics. But this is not enough.
"80 percent of the antibiotics used in the United States are used on factory farms. Every year, over two million Americans suffer from antibiotic resistant infections, and 23,000 people die from them. The Food and Drug Administration has been aware of the problems associated with the misuse of these critical, life saving drugs since at least 1977, but has not required factory farms to stop misusing them.
"Despite overwhelming scientific evidence that curbing the misuse of antibiotics on factory farms would address this public health crisis and help maintain the effectiveness of these critical, life saving drugs, the meat industry continues to oppose meaningful regulation on how it uses antibiotics.
"Ultimately the National Action Plan is a missed opportunity to take more aggressive action. That is why we need federal legislation like the Preservation of Antibiotics for Medical Treatment Act that would end the overuse of medically important antibiotics in livestock production. This is what it will take to combat this public health crisis."
Food & Water Watch mobilizes regular people to build political power to move bold and uncompromised solutions to the most pressing food, water, and climate problems of our time. We work to protect people's health, communities, and democracy from the growing destructive power of the most powerful economic interests.
(202) 683-2500LATEST NEWS
Dems Rip Musk-Ramaswamy Plan for Spending Cuts as Illegal 'Power Grab'
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Democrats on the House Budget Committee said Friday that the plan Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy outlined to eliminate spending already appropriated by the U.S. Congress would run afoul of a federal law enacted in response to former President Richard Nixon's impoundment of funds for programs he opposed.
In a Wall Street Journalop-ed published earlier this week, Musk and Ramaswamy specifically mentioned the 1974 Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act (ICA) only to wave it away, arguing it would not hinder their effort to enact sweeping spending cuts as part of the "government efficiency" commission President-elect Donald Trump appointed them to lead.
But House Budget Committee Democrats said Friday that the Nixon-era law and subsequent Supreme Court rulings make clear that "the power of the purse rests solely with Congress."
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The fact sheet was released days after Musk and Ramaswamy, both billionaires, offered for the first time a detailed explanation of their plan to pursue large-scale cuts to federal regulations and spending, as well as mass firings of federal employees, in their role as co-heads of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
The pair noted that Trump "has previously suggested" the ICA is unconstitutional and expressed the view that "the current Supreme Court would likely side with him on this question." The former president appointed half of the court's right-wing supermajority.
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Initial reports from Ukrainian officials said that the strike was an intercontinental ballistic missile, in contrast to Putin's characterization of the missile. According to the Financial Times, officials from Ukraine, Russia, NATO, and the U.S. have offered different exact classifications for the weapon.
Putin, in a televised address, made clear that the move was in response to Ukraine's use of western-made weapons to strike deeper into Russia.
The Ukrainian government had long sought the permission of western governments to use weapons like American-made Army Tactical Missile Systems, or ATACMS, and U.K.-produced Storm Shadow missiles. The U.S. began supplying the Lockheed Martin-produced ATACMS earlier this year, according to Defense One, but imposed restrictions on their use due to the escalatory implications of Ukraine using them to strike targets far inside Russian territory.
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"From that moment, as we have repeatedly underscored, a regional conflict in Ukraine previously provoked by the West has acquired elements of a global character," Putin said in his address, according to Reuters.
The comments come days after Putin also codified a change to the country's nuclear doctrine that lowered the threshold for potential nuclear weapons use.
Meanwhile, on the Ukrainian side, the country's former military commander Valery Zaluzhny offered a bleak prognosis of the war earlier this week, saying that he "believe[s] that in 2024 we can absolutely believe that the Third World War has begun."
The comments were in reference to the fact that Russia is enlisting the help of outside allies, such as North Korea, in its military effort.
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Anatol Lieven, the director of the Eurasia Program at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, offered an argument against what he sees as the underlying rationale of allowing Ukraine to attack Russia with U.S. and U.K.-supplied long range missiles.
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