Au-delà de l’agriculture industrielle

Antibiotics in animal feed

The World Health Organization (WHO) has called for a stop to the routine use of antibiotics in animal feed due to their contribution to the rising incidence of human infections caused by antibiotic resistant bacteria. It is estimated that 90% of antibiotics consumedused in Canada are used in agriculture as a feed additive for factory farmed poultry, swine, and beef. The whistle-blowers have objected to approvals of antibiotics of the fluoroquinolone, erythromycin, tetracycline, and penicillin types for veterinary use.

• WHO Issues New Recommendations to Protect Human Health from Antimicrobial Use in Food Animals

• Restrict antibiotic use in animals: scientists
  (CBC, Oct 2002)

• Europe Just Says "No" to Using Antibiotics to Promote Livestock Growth
  Union of Concerned Scientists

• Antibiotics in Animal Feed
  by Joan Stephenson, PhD Journal of the American Medical Assocation. 2003

• Impacts of antimicrobial growth promoter termination in Denmark
  The WHO international review panel’s evaluation of the termination of the use of antimicrobial growth promoters in Denmark.

• CFIA Summary of Feed Drug Clearances
  medicating ingredients approved for use in preventing, controlling and/or treating specific diseases and conditions of livestock in Canada.

Growth Hormones in Livestock

In 2000 European inspectors evaluated drug residues in food animals in Canada. Six growth hormones being used here were banned in Europe because of links to cancer, among them revelor-H, approved by Health Canada against the advice of scientists.

Previous research shows that Revlor-H caused deformities in the ovaries, uterus, and prostate of the cows, and also damaged the thymus, which controls the immune system.

rBGH - Genetically Modified Cow Growth Hormone.

In 1990 Monsanto applied to Health Canada for approval of this drug. It was approved in the USA in 1993. In 1997 Health Canada asked Shiv Chopra, Gerard Lambert and two others to do a "gaps analysis" of the data submitted by Monsanto and Eli Lily. They found that the companies had not provided data on the impact of this hormone on babies and children, nor was the question of IGF-1 (associated with increased breast and prostate cancers) answered. The scientists were asked to appear as witnesses before the Senate Committee on Agriculture. As a result, rBGH was not approved for use in Canada’s dairy sector.

• rBST and the Drug Approval Process, Interim Report by the Standing Senate Committee on Agriculture and Forestry, March 1999

• The Evidence on rBST: The Safety of rBST for Humans

• rBST(Nutrilac) "Gaps Analysis"
  Report by rBST Internal Review Team Health Protection Branch, Health Canada April 21, 1998