For many kinds of illnesses, antibiotics are the drugs that will knock the "bad bugs" out of your system, or your child's. But the misuse of antibiotics can have serious negative effects, among them making drug-resistant microorganisms that are difficult to treat.

This is why your physician may tell you that you cannot have an antibiotic to treat a case of influenza. The flu is caused by a virus, and antibiotics won’t kill viruses. But taking an antibiotic for an illness that it cannot treat may expose other bugs in your body to the drug, giving them just enough of a “taste” to develop a resistance to that drug. Thus, a drug-resistant microorganism may be created, to spread and infect others.

But here’s the kicker: Even if you and every other person on the planet used antibiotics 100 percent properly, there’s another place where overuse of the drugs can hurt you.

The livestock industry.

As much as 70 percent of the antibiotics produced in the United States today are used in food animals, according to the Union of Concerned Scientists, a Cambridge, Mass.-based group. In addition to treating disease, substantial amounts of these drugs are given to healthy animals to prevent illness and cause weight gain.

The trouble is, many of these drugs are very similar to the antibiotics used for humans. Thus, overusing antibiotics in animals can help contribute to the development of drug-resistance diseases in humans.

"Nontherapeutic use of antibiotics in healthy animals for growth promotion and feed efficiency should be discontinued," says Sherwood Gorbach, a professor of community medicine at Tufts University Medical School. "Furthermore, certain antibiotics that are critically important in human medicine, such as fluoroquinolones and third-generation cephalosporins, should be restricted to use only in critically ill animals and refractory cases under a veterinarian's prescription."

Senator Edward M. Kennedy (D-MA), who chairs the Senate's Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions, has introduced legislation to phase out use of medically important antibiotics as feed additives. Use of these drugs to treat sick animals would not be restricted, with one exception: all use in poultry of fluoroquinolones would be banned.

This bill, S. 2508, the "Preservation of Antibiotics for Human Treatment Act of 2002," needs your senator's support. If that isn't already the case, please contact your senator to urge passage of the bill. (The American Medical Association, American Public Health Association, and other leading medical groups have endorsed a similar bill introduced in the House, H.R. 3804, which may later need our support.)

To keep tabs on the status of the Senate bill, visit
http://thomas.loc.gov/home/c107query.html.
If you need to find out who your senator is, visit
www.senate.gov/senators/senator_by_state.cfm.
(If you wish to contact your representative as well regarding H.R. 3804, you can find out who your representative is at
www.house.gov/house/MemberWWW.html.)

If you’re ready to contact your senator now, a sample letter is provided below to help get you started.

You can get more information about this legislation (and another sample letter) at
http://actionnetwork.org//campaign/KennedABRBill.

SAMPLE LETTER

Dear Senator _________________:

Antibiotic resistance is a growing threat to human health. Especially at risk are children, seniors, and those with certain medical conditions (including cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy, transplant patients, diabetics, and persons living with HIV/AIDS).

One reason for antibiotic resistance is overuse in human medicine. But a greater threat seems to be in agriculture, where 70 percent of the antibiotics produced today are given to livestock. And that's not just sick animals but healthy ones (to promote weight gain and to prevent illness).

If that's not overuse, what is? Many of the drugs used in animals are virtually the same as those used in humans. The use of such drugs, and their release into the environment, puts our long-term health at risk.

I urge your support of Senate bill S. 2508, the Preservation of Antibiotics for Human Treatment Act of 2002. Thank you.

Sincerely

[Your Name]