Representatives of more than 150 health care organizations, medical schools, pharmaceutical companies federal health agencies and food-production interests met at the White House today for a “Forum on Antibiotic Stewardship,” the first of its kind. The Forum is a day-long meeting, to be held mostly out of the public eye, in which the Obama Administration plans to press the companies and organizations to commit to plans to reduce and conserve antibiotic use, in order to slow down the advance of antibiotic resistance.
Putting its own marker on the table, the White House announced this morning that it is directing federal departments to begin purchasing meat and poultry raised with what they called “responsible antibiotic use,” a term that is going to take some unpacking but that probably means in accordance with the reduced-antibiotic use policies that the Food and Drug Administration has been pushing forward since 2014. The White House said the purchasing plan would have work on a five-year timeline, ending up in 2020 with “applying a preference” for antibiotic-free meats.
The summit follows on a suite of other actions the administration has taken to combat resistance, which according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention kills 23,000 Americans each year and sickens more than 2 million. (The UK-based Review on Antimicrobial Resistance estimates that the worldwide toll is 750,000 deaths a year, and predicts it will rise as high as 10 million.)
The GLP aggregated and excerpted this blog/article to reflect the diversity of news, opinion and analysis. Read full, original post: Today: Obama White House Convenes First Antibiotic Summit
