Canada phasing out animal growth drugs that cause superbugs, ‘loopholes’ persist

Health Canada is moving to phase out antibiotic drugs for growth promotion in livestock over the next three years due to concerns over antimicrobial resistance. A Health Canada notice to stakeholders on April 10 said it’s working on “removing growth promotion and production claims of medically-important antimicrobial drugs,” and has been promoting “judicious” use of antibiotics for medical use in food animal production. Pre-emptive use or over-use of antibiotics in animals is a growing concern because it can lead to creating drug-resistant microbes that can spread to humans, experts say. Antibiotics are typically used in three ways on animals: growth promotion, therapeutic use for curing animals and preventative use to stop infection from spreading. According to a report last year by Dr. David Butler Jones, Canada’s Public Health Officer, about 90 per cent of antibiotics used on animals are used for growth promotion or for “prophylaxis,” which is preventative treatment. It said limiting antibiotics “could help reduce the development of resistance in animals and the transmission to other animals and to people,” and singled Canada out for having no official guidelines or policies to manage microbial usage in animals. Jean Szkotnicki, president of the Canadian Animal Health Institute, a trade association that represents manufacturers of animal health products, said they have agreed to remove growth promotion claims on antibiotics considered “critically important” and to change labelling so the level of veterinary oversight on products is clearer—a move toward prescription details on products. The voluntary measures follow the U.S. Federal Drug Administration’s move on the same issue and is part of an effort to “harmonize regulation and facilitate trade” with the U.S. Ms. Szkotnicki said it addresses some of the consumer concerns about drugs breeding resistant microbes. “This is the animal production side of use, taking some measures to try and make sure we minimize our contribution to antimicrobial resistance and help to ensure these products have a long life and they’re effective in human medicine,” she said. Canada still allows “own-use” importation from other countries, meaning the drugs can’t be resold or redistributed. Ms. Szkotnicki said her organization wants Health Canada’s veterinary drugs directorate to close “loopholes” allowing non-approved products into Canada. Bob Hancock, a microbiologist at the University of British Columbia, said using growth-promoting drugs should be “done away with” and pointed to Europe as an example, which banned them to prevent antimicrobial resistance. “I think this is one of the most dangerous practices there is and it’s of dubious value,” he said. Prof. Hancock points to a study by researchers in Denmark that showed improving farm hygiene practices has just as good an effect as growth promoters. “Therapeutics is probably justified but we have to be careful. I think prophylaxis is a potentially dangerous issue,” he said. He said the problem is it’s easy to obtain antibiotics from other countries. “You can buy drums across the border and cart them back here and use them to treat animals,” he said. This can happen where a farm is remote and it might not be possible to get a veterinarian there to give proper advice about dispensing antibiotics, he said. According to Prof. Hancock, over half of antibiotic use on the planet is for animal health, which makes it an important area of drug use to clamp down on. “The bottom line is we have relatively few antibiotics in our society and we have a massive issue with resistance, so we’re running out of antibiotics.” Scott McEwen, a professor in the department of population medicine at the University of Guelph, said the amount of antibiotics coming into Canada is not known. “We really don’t know how much is brought in or under what circumstances, whether the quality of the drugs is an issue, or what’s the identity of the drug. That’s where the concern is,” he said. He said the biggest concerns for public health from antibiotic use in animals are enteric bacteria, such as salmonella, campylobacter, and E. coli. These can become resistant and spread, which is important because they can cause foodborne illnesses. A 2011 study by the Canadian Integrated Program for Antimicrobial Resistance Surveillance found high levels of antimicrobial resistance in salmonella, attributed to using antibiotics on chickens. Once the use stopped, it noted a significant decrease in resistant salmonella in retail chicken and humans. Prof. McEwan testified to a Senate committee in February that one problem with regulating these drugs has been Canada’s federal-provincial structure. In one case, he said a drug called ceftiofur couldn’t be banned by Health Canada because it’s regulated at the provincial level but Canadian data led to its immediate ban in the U.S. Prof. McEwen said he thinks policy makers need to understand the complexity of the problem. “It’s really an ecological problem, in that resistance spreads pretty quickly between spheres. We can’t separate use in animals from use in people very well because of the ability of microorganisms to move around,” he said. “While we can do things here in Canada, and we should, we have to be aware that what people do in other countries also affects us.” kduggan@hilltimes.com The Hill Times

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Canada phasing out animal growth drugs that cause superbugs, ‘loopholes’ persist

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