Oregon Legislature targets antibiotics in factory farms

The Oregon Legislature is considering limiting the nonmedical use of antibiotics in large animal farms through two bills, with the hopes of preventing the growth of antibiotic-resistant bacteria.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2 million Americans become ill with antibiotic-resistant infections annually, and 23,000 die from these illnesses. The proponents of the legislation say the bills target the most blatant overusers of antibiotics: factory farms.

Factory farms have long used low doses of antibiotics in animal feed and water to promote quicker growth and to prevent disease. Advocates say this practice, coupled with unhygienic and cramped living conditions for the animals, are hot breeding grounds for antibiotic-resistant bacteria.

The House Committee on Agriculture and Natural Resources heard testimony on House Bill 2598 last week, and the Senate Committee on Health Care will hear a similar bill (Senate Bill 920) Monday.

The bills would prohibit giving antibiotics to healthy farm animals and require factory farms to report how antibiotics are used in their operations. The rules would be largely self-enforcing, though the attorney general could step in if a farm is shown to be in violation.

In the House bill, the point agency would be the Department of Agriculture, and in the Senate bill, the point agency would be the Oregon Health Authority.

If one of the bills passes, Oregon could become the first state in the country to regulate animal farms' use of antibiotics, OSPIRG's executive director Dave Rosenfeld said.

Of course, antibiotics are not only used in farms. However, up to 70 percent of antibiotics sold in the U.S. are for livestock and poultry, Rosenfeld said.

Opponents who testified against HB 2598, including the Oregon Farm Bureau, Oregon Feed and Grain Association Inc. and Northwest Food Processors, said such regulation should be left up to the federal government.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has addressed a part of the issue and asked pharmaceutical companies to stop selling antibiotics to animal farms for the purpose of growth promotion. OSPIRG and Friends of Family Farms say this is a voluntary program and lacks teeth. It also does not address disease prevention, which they say masks poor animal husbandry practices and attempts to offset unsanitary conditions.

"It's like never bathing your kids then giving them antibiotics everyday so they don't get pink eye," Rosenfeld said.

The White House also last week announced a national plan to combat antibiotic-resistant bacteria. That plan also fails to address antibiotics used as disease prevention, Rosenfeld said.

So while opponents of the bills say the federal government is and should regulate farms' use of antibiotics, proponents say it's not enough.

Antibiotics should only be used when medically needed, said Ivan Maluski, Friends of Family Farms policy director. And when animals do get sick, it's important that antibiotics are effective.

The bills would only affect Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations, as defined by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Out of Oregon's 35,000 farms, 100 to 110 of them are CAFOs, the most famous of which is operated by Foster Farms.

Foster Farms was linked to a 29-state outbreak of antibiotic-resistant Salmonella in 2013 and 2014 that sickened 634 people, according to the CDC.

syoo@StatesmanJournal.com, (503) 399-6673 or follow at Twitter.com/syoo.