FDA May Ban Drugs Used on Poultry

The Food and Drug Administration announced plans to ban two antibiotics widely used by poultry farmers to keep chickens and turkeys healthy, saying the practice increases the danger that humans will become infected with germs that resist treatment. The removal would mark the first time the government has pulled any drug to combat infections that have grown resistant to antibiotics, which public health officials have been warning for years could return the world to the days before penicillin and other infection killers. The action would also be the first specifically aimed at reducing the use of any specific antibiotics by livestock farmers, a practice that has increasingly raised alarms that it may boost the transmission of resistant microbes from animals to people. Public health organizations, including the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, have advocated such a ban for years. Bayer Corp. Animal Division, of Shawnee Mission, Kan., which dominates the market, said it may contest the proposal.