Are Antibiotics in Ethanol Endangering Our Health

So, I thought it might be a good time to check in with the lat­est news on antibi­otics in agri­cul­ture. Let’s round up those antibiotic-dosed dogies!

Back in the spring, I wrote about a report pro­duced by the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy that accused phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal com­pa­nies of ille­gally mar­ket­ing antibi­otics to the ethanol indus­try. IATP pro­duced evi­dence that the Food and Drug Administration knew of this prac­tice, yet did noth­ing to stop it.

Ethanol pro­duc­ers add antibi­otics to the grains to con­trol “infec­tions” dur­ing the fer­men­ta­tion process. And, unbe­knownst to many eaters, 30 mil­lion tons of ethanol byprod­ucts, or “dis­tillers grains,” are fed to live­stock here and abroad every year. (As an indus­trial byprod­uct, dis­tillers grains are cheap and abun­dant). But those spent grains also con­tain enough antibi­otic residue to contribute—at least in some cases—to a rise in antibi­otic resis­tance in the ani­mals to which they’re fed.

I received a vague denial from the FDA when I asked them to assess the legal­ity of this prac­tice. But the inquiries (thank­fully) did not stop with your intre­pid reporter. Rep. Louise Slaughter (D-N.Y.) and Rep. Edward Markey (D-Mass.) sent a let­ter to the FDA ask­ing for a bit of an expla­na­tion as well.

Earlier this month, the agency responded [PDF]—not by doing fur­ther inves­ti­ga­tions or chang­ing their pol­icy, but by writ­ing a let­ter. IATP’s blog sum­ma­rized the response:

… the FDA states it has not rec­og­nized any ethanol antibi­otics as safe [in ethanol pro­duc­tion], nor has it com­pleted a review of the food addi­tive peti­tions that have been sub­mit­ted by the manufacturers.

In addi­tion, the let­ter includes “a clearly stated acknowl­edge­ment … that the agency has not car­ried out suf­fi­cient safety reviews to prop­erly assess the mul­ti­ple risks posed by antibi­otic use in ethanol.”

What the let­ter does not include is a state­ment that the FDA will crack down on the phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal com­pa­nies who are mar­ket­ing the antibi­otics to ethanol pro­duc­ers. It’s worth not­ing that antibi­otics are not required to make ethanol; there are other ways to keep bugs out of the fac­to­ries. Antibiotics are just an easy (some might say lazy) solu­tion. But this steady stream of med­ically impor­tant antibi­otics flow­ing into farm ani­mals con­tin­ues to cre­ate prob­lems for people.

Click here to read the rest of this arti­cle at Grist.org.