Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) and Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) are still waiting for answers to animal antibiotics questions posed eight months ago. The senators originally wrote to the co-chairs of the Interagency Task Force for Combating Antibiotic-Resistant Bacteria in December 2014 wanting to know about how the task force plans to address issues…
2014 in Review: Animal Antibiotics
Food Safety News wrote a lot about antibiotic resistance this year — particularly the debate surrounding the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) plan to phase out the use of certain antibiotics in food animals, introduced in December 2013, and conversations sparked by the 16-month outbreak of multi-drug-resistant Salmonella Heidelberg linked to Foster Farms-brand chicken that…
Three Senators Have Questions for Interagency Antibiotics Task Force
Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) and Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) sent a letter Tuesday to Secretaries Chuck Hagel, Tom Vilsack and Sylvia Burwell, co-chairs of the newly formed Interagency Task Force for Combating Antibiotic-Resistant Bacteria, to ask how this task force will address gaps in how the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is currently…
Senators Want FDA to Collect More Animal Antibiotics Data
Senators Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), Tom Harkin (D-IA), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) and Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) are calling on the Food and Drug Administration to step up animal antibiotic tracking. Specifically, they want the agency to propose a rule to improve collection of data on antibiotic use and resistance. “We applaud your agency’s recent step to issue…
Senators Call on Obama for Increased NARMS Funding
Senators Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) and Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) are urging the president to include $15 million in his fiscal year 2016 budget request for the National Antimicrobial Resistance Monitoring System (NARMS), which tracks antibiotic resistance in foodborne pathogens. The letter, which was sent Monday, stated that the increase would “significantly improve…
Senators Want More Antibiotics Information From FDA
Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) and Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) wrote to U.S. Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Margaret Hamburg on Monday to ask for more information regarding the agency’s efforts to curb the overuse of antibiotics in food animal production. The senators called Guidance #213 and the proposed rule on Veterinary Feed Directives…
Warren Questions FDA Commissioner About Antibiotics Guidance
The issue of antibiotics in animal feed reared its head again Thursday as U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) questioned Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Margaret Hamburg about the effectiveness of Guidance 213 during a Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) hearing. “Surely the removal of production uses from the market is a…